Social networks have been touted as the next big marketing tool for any business. So we all have a profile on MySpace and Orkut, and have even tried to answer a question or two on LinkedIn. Our contact details are on Plaxo and we have even made the occasional Tweet.

Welcome to the real world.
If you are confused about which social networks to be on, you are not alone. There are hundreds and hundreds of social networks out there, catering to every type of choice, audience, need, and fashion. Given the profusion of networks and the fact that the flavor of the season changes so fast, there is bound to be confusion, not to mention where to find time for them.
Each season seems to have its own flavor of social networking. It was Facebook and Orkut sometime back, and then the buzz moved on to LinkedIn till it moved to the current favorite Twitter. Meanwhile, the once-pioneer MySpace is more or less forgotten.

This piece explores how social networks can really help improve your business. This is written in an Indian context, but uses American case studies. Is that an anachronism? Not exactly. While social networks can be used to enhance your business potential, there are limitations to how much it can be used, and almost all experts agree that there are very few Indian companies that have got it right. Internet connectivity in India is still at low penetration levels, leave aside social media usage. Out of the billion-plus population in the country, about 4 percent have an Internet connection and Mahesh Murty (@maheshmurthy on Twitter) of Pinstorm estimates that about 600,000 are on Twitter. (You can Tweet – post a message to Twitter – using a cellphone. So the two numbers do not match.)

Eleven rules of social media engagement
There are no fixed rules of what you can do in social media. Each one has its own fair use policy. But as a business, there are some rules that will help you get along.
1. Temper your expectations according to the audience available. If you are in a niche industry that sells directly to five clients in the world, then perhaps, social media may not be able to help you too much. If your customers are in rural towns and villages in India, then social media is definitely not your vehicle.

2. You need to be simultaneously active on multiple networks that reach your target audience. Just being active in one will not further your cause. You need to find out and be active in networks that target your own industry, as well as in networks that have your target audience to get the best results.

3.  Do not expect miracles overnight. You need to build up the trust of your audience. Social media have their on trust and reputation cycles, and it will take time to build up your reputation in a network and to get people to respond
to you.

4. Do not be sporadic. Appearing and disappearing at random is the surest way of putting off your audience since they cannot be sure about you and cannot trust you. If you get into a social network, be prepared to be there for the long haul. Be prepared to commit time, resources, and energy for this.

5. Do not delegate it to the junior-most employees. Involvement in social media is like making PR appearances. That cannot be done by junior employees who do not have the power to talk or take decisions on behalf of the business. Social media interactions should be carried out by senior stakeholders and employees, and by those who are authorized to decide or talk on behalf of the business.

6. Whatever happens, do not fight. Remember that you are talking in front of a potentially large audience. It is too tempting for others not to take the side of the little guy taking on the organization. You just cannot win even if you are right and the other guy is completely nuts. So, what ever happens, do not fight. If anything, go out of your way to be helpful and resolve issues.

7. One person cannot represent a brand. If you use social media, then you need to put enough resources behind it. Ideally, all employees in the organization should contribute. In real life, enough employees should be tasked to the project.

8. Keep your ears open, not just your mouth. From the perspective of a brand, social media is not just about getting your message out. It is more about hearing what others have to say about it. It is also about molding that opinion and finally about getting your message amplified by others. For all this to happen, you need to first keep your ears open and listening to what others are saying about your brand.

9. Cross-link your social media activity. Rule two asks you to be active on multiple social media. But do not keep each isolated from the other. You should cross-link and cross-post to each other to derive the maximum benefits.

10. Make it personal. Do not use corporatized jargon or PR-speak. You are talking to people and they expect a real person at the other end, not an uncaring automation. Add a personal touch to your messages, particularly your replies.

11. Rule Zero. This is the most sacrosanct of all rules for social media engagement, and so I have kept it to the last. Do not sell directly. You can give links to deals, you can offer discount codes, you can mention special offers, or mention specific products in response to queries, but the unwritten rule of social media is – do not sell directly. Doing that is the surest way of making yourselves unwelcome.

Having set out the rules of engagement, lets see some examples of social networks that can be used for business and how.

Twitter
Twitter is the hottest social network currently. Twitter takes messages of up to 140 characters at a time and you can access it not just from the Internet, but also from your cellphone. The real power of Twitter is when you combine it with URL shorteners like bit.ly or tinyurl. They let you embed links within your tweet. Guy Kawasaki (@GuyKawasaki) former Apple fellow and now Managing Director of Garage Technology Ventures, is putting out hundreds of Tweets these days that embed interesting URLS from alltop.com, of which he is co-founder. One of the advantages of Twitter is that there are a number of tools out there that enhance your ability to use the platform. For example, Twitterfeed lets you automatically Tweet the update of, say, a blog on Twitter. Tweetlater, as the name indicates, lets you schedule Tweets, and so on. Yammer is the closed corporate version of Twitter. It lets you Tweet to closed user groups as identified by your corporate e-mail ID.

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