Brands these days use Social Media to increase their credibility; it has revolutionized communication across all levels. It has given people and businesses a platform to share their views with the world. Engaging with consumers adds value and helps strengthen a brand’s identity. This is almost as effective as word of mouth but has an impact on a  larger number of people. Social Media plays a significant role in influencing the buying decision of consumers since people now search, read, review, discuss and then consider before making a purchase.

In order to build an effective brand communication through Social Media, you should be aware of your audience. This makes it easier to focus your activities across various Social Media channels. These channels can be categorized in this way:

Social Networking – With the advent of sites like Facebook, Orkut and LinkedIn, people have found a new way to stay connected with friends, colleagues and acquaintances. These sites can be used to target potential customers and prospects by sharing articles, videos and other interesting business links. This helps to establish relationships with customers and increase credibility.

Bookmarking – Increases brand visibility and enhances Search Engine rankings. Bookmarking web links of a home page and other sections of a website can improve search results in Google.

Micro-blogging – Twitter is the most popular site for micro-blogging. It is an interactive medium and is a powerful way to spread messages faster. To increase followers on Twitter, one needs to frequently update status and post interesting tweets. These tweets can include both promotional and non-promotional activity links.

Blogging – Creating a blog, posting interesting videos and articles and constantly updating content helps increase brand awareness. These blogs can also be bookmarked to increase traffic to the site.

Video Sharing – This tool can be used to effectively communicate a message in a few seconds. A well-made video, syndicated across sites like You Tube, MetaCafe and MySpace can help drive traffic and increase awareness of your brand. Creative and interesting videos can help reach out to a wider audience and facilitate viral marketing.

Discussion Groups and Forums - These are places where one can learn how consumers feel about a product or brand. Participating in discussions helps understand consumers well and accordingly position the product.

It is important not to adopt the “one-size-fits-all” approach to reach out to the target audience. you should select the right channel to develop a trustworthy relationship with the audience and get an edge over your competitors.

The March 26th edition of The New York Times carried a story about Twitter and how celebrities have turned to ghost writers to put out the 140 character text messages. The article cited examples, and quoted celebrities and consultants (i.e., ghost Twitterers) who explain and defend the “ghosts” in Twitter as acceptable. Basketball star, Shaq and cycling great, Armstrong, were the standouts in their opinion that it is pitiful if someone, even a busy celebrity, couldn’t regularly string together 140 characters conveying their own thoughts and opinions to their fans and followers.

So, what should we make of this? Does it even matter?

It definitely matters. In this age of information overload when messages are being created, re-transmitted, amplified and often spun out of control, full disclosure about the true source of messages from influential role models and decision makers is very important. Decisions to agree, endorse, or re-transmit (ReTweeting)—or not—any original message are predicated on knowing the true source of that original message. That’s why we have elaborate conventions for written and verbal forms of communications: attributing, quoting, citing, official spokespersons, declared official biographers, and speechwriters to name a few. Once we know the true origins of a message we apply our own filter and a different standard in judging what to make of the message.

So, we’re comfortable with President Obama’s declared use of a social media team that also Twitters for him, or Guy Kawaski’s hand-off to his Twitter team. It’s like all the other help that people at the top of their respective ‘games’ use to get and stay there: image consultants, speech writers, fitness trainers, or mental sports coaches. The critical delineation is that all these consultants, are generally just that—consultants—providers of input for the final product that their clients absorb but then personally deliver.

Obviously, we all sit up and pay very different attention when The President himself hosts a session with the press corps, though we’ll also listen with interest when it’s his White House Spokesperson delivering a message.

The NY Times article and its examples just indisputably demonstrate that people are using firms to manage their personality and image. But it’s some of the holier than thou opinions about keeping social media “pure and personal” that are naive. And the strong, implicit stance The NY Times takes by stuffing its article with examples of ghost-writing may belie their irritation about Twitter emerging as yet another distracting digital medium stealing precious time and mind share–putting them, even if only temporarily, in the slow lane for real time news sharing and engagement.

However, for marketers, microblogging presents a good opportunity to leverage services like Twitter in an up-front manner as many already do: a real-time, hip way to engage with your fans, followers and prospects.

Marketing on Twitter and some other social media is inherently risky today if marketers seek traditional “control” over messaging. But bold, innovative brands like Skittles are doing it. Their willingness to expose themselves online and take the good with the bad is actually pure, more authentic, and even “human”–part of being mature, secure, learning adults is to become comfortable with mixed messages of praise and criticism directed at us. The same holds true for a brand’s online persona.

So, as marketers, we should quickly leverage the phenomenon that is Twitter, get clients’ messages out there in an open and transparent manner, build momentum, and see where it takes us. Twitter is a very effective way of engaging with people who are undoubtedly opinion leaders and often the early adopters every new product or service craves. As a general practice it’s best to make clear the original source of messaging. It’s easier to sort through any downstream negative spin or malicious messaging and create an effective Social Media Marketing led brand defence, or reputation monitoring.

A sign of the maturing of Twitter and its readiness for planned marketing campaigns is the very agenda based, business-like turn it is taking. The same maturation process that led email, blogging, or mobile/cell phone messaging, and the Web, in general, to become rich media for marketers is happening with Twitter. As the targets of marketers, we didn’t turn away from email—we just constructed mechanisms to filter what we choose to receive.

Our desire to invoke filters for Twitter isn’t strong just yet. Twitter is a growing phenomenon, and it’s going to be cool for some time to come. The majority of Twitter users love it, and stories of Twitter junkies are growing. The proof is in the pudding—Twitter has grown 1300+% from Feb 2008!

While it’s still cool and hip, marketers need to quickly warm up to Twitter, hatch a ghost or self-generated Twittering plan, and grow that plan till Twitter and micro-blogging become deeply entrenched mainstream marketing media. Rest assured some new digital product or service will come along to serve those with a strong need for exclusively personal, “pure” communication–maybe those folks should just pick up the phone!