Typically we think of brands involving logos, taglines and a color scheme, but now a company brand extends to social media as well, requiring you to monitor your brand online and develop your social media personality via Facebook, Twitter and more.

Here’s a great article from Inc. magazine on “The New Rules of Branding Your Business Online” that offers up excellent suggestions on bringing your brand into the social media world. Key tips include engaging your customers so they better understand your brand and develop brand loyalty.

Also, use social media to tell customers more about who you are; it’s easier to connect with a company you feel you know than one that’s simply a static website. Monitoring your brand via social media is important. People will be talking about you, so watch out for what they are saying and respond – whether it’s a positive or negative comment.

Let’s hear how you’re building your brand on social media.

The survey was an initiative of Smart Brief, which publishes free e-mail newsletters that provide top stories and news for various industries.

The State of Social Media for Business 2010 report found that most companies surveyed have adopted the use of social media in the past 18 months, using primarily Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and blogs.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that 60 percent of respondents say that even though their companies are using social media, they have little confidence in their social media strategies. Our guess this stat may be tied to another finding in the report: While companies have a primary goal of using social media to build their brand, most are using the tools to push information out rather to engage customers and potential customers in a two-way conversation.

That engagement and conversation is the key to harnessing the power of social media. Consumers are bombarded with messages and sales pitches all day long. Businesses shoving information out via Twitter and Facebook are simply part of the noise. The trick it to engage with consumers so they develop a relationship with your brand that is more likely to lead to a real return on investment.

Share with us how you are using social media in your business. Or are you struggling to get started?

Here’s an interesting post from David Armano on the Harvard Business Review blog predicting six social media trends for 2011. One interesting trend is something Armano calls social media schizophrenia – overloaded by social profiles. More and more people – even the not-so-techy types – may find themselves overwhelmed by a dearth of profiles.

Some of us may have found we’ve been suffering from social media schizophrenia throughout 2010, which means our condition may worsen next year. This will require more organization and time management. It means you need to select the social networking sites that work best for your mission – whether it be personal or business.

What social media trends do you foresee for 2011?
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Sometimes getting that final seal of approval can be a real sticking point when it comes to implementing your company’s social media plan. The CEO may have concerns about jumping into the world of tweets, blogs, posts, diggs and viral videos. He may be worried about putting the company “out there” so publicly or concerned about the staff time needed to manage such an endeavor.

Those are all good considerations and ones you need to address when pitching your boss on the benefits of social media. If you’ve managed to work your way up the chain to the point where you can meet with the CEO and show her your ideas, you’ll want to make sure your approach is just right.

This is a great post on the SmartBlogs on Social Media offering the “Five Steps to Build a Company Wide Social Media Plan.” One of the ideas that makes a lot of sense is to avoid using the phrase “social media.” What? How can you craft a social media plan or presentation without using this term?

According to the blog:

The point of these “new strategies” is to help meet existing goals. If you introduce the group you’re assembling to senior leaders as a “social-media team,” they might assume it’s an experiment of sorts. This is about using new channels to achieve company goals, not about trying to get more fans on Facebook.

Good advice! Social media isn’t about having a Facebook page or a Twitter account just so you can say you have one. These tools need to align with your company’s strategic plan, goals and vision.

Also, when approaching upper management, it’s always good to talk money – preferably how to make more of it and how to spend less of it. The good news is social media tools for the most part are free, so the only investment is staff time to manage these accounts.

As for making money, social media is all about brand awareness and keeping your name in front of your current and potential customers. It may be tough to track a sale that was a direct result of an interaction on Twitter or Facebook, but there’s a very good chance that a customer remembered you because of an interaction on Twitter or Facebook.

We’d like to hear how you sold social medial to your management team? Or are you a CEO who jumped on board early on?

From the Computerworld article:

According to a study commissioned by Robert Half Technology, an IT staffing firm, 54% of U.S. companies say that they have banned workers from using social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace while on the job. The study also found that 19% of companies allow social networking use only for business purposes, while 16% allow limited personal use. Only 10% of the 1,400 CIOs interviewed said that their companies allow employees full access to social networks during work hours.

Yet with more companies turning to social networking sites for business purposes, is this policy too extreme? Spirit Telecom recently launched its social media campaign and encourages employees to interact with it. But, there’s a fine line.

Most businesses would agree they can’t possibly afford to have employees playing on Facebook and MySpace all day or reading tweets from the 2,000 people they are following on Twitter. So, here are some suggestions for making the most of social networking without becoming too “big brother.”

• If you don’t want to allow social networking sites on all employee computers, consider having one or two with open access. Or give certain employees who are managing the company’s social networking initiatives access to the sites.
• Establish a policy. Make sure employees understand what’s expected of them. Yes, you don’t mind if they spend a few minutes on Facebook or Twitter helping promote the company, but they shouldn’t be accessing their personal accounts.
• Pay attention. It should be obvious pretty quickly if an employee is spending several hours a day on social networking sites. You’ll notice missed deadlines and diminished productivity. At that point, you can address the situation with the employee.

What is your company policy? Do you allow employees to access social networking sites? If so, has it been a problem?