Social media is not a fad that will simply fade away in a year or two. With the plethora of Web 2.0 tools and technologies, social media has become the new way of marketing. Businesses that don’t join in will miss important opportunities to engage in conversations, find new customers and promote their brand. Your marketing department can no longer determine what is published, who is interviewed and where information gets posted. The game has changed and conversations are happening with or without you. Business need to start pay attention to the conversations and provide information and interactions to support their brand.

Whether or not you want to engage in social media, there are three new marketing rules every business should follow:

• Claim Your Name! If you don’t create accounts on Facebook and Twitter to claim your company name, you risk being brandjacked. Many companies, celebrities and politicians have been brandjacked by others misrepresenting their identities on these sites.

• Monitor Your Name. Your customers are going to talk about you, posting positive or negative comments about your products, services, customer support, etc. Allowing those opinions to float around on the Internet can damage your brand. At the very least, use that information to improve your company.

• Be Prepared. Start to develop your social media strategy with targeted goals and outcomes, and include it as part of your larger marketing and business plans. A social media strategy needs to outline what you want to accomplish and the tools you’ll use to get there.