Flip through the marketing materials of any given company, and you’re bound to find a reference to its commitment to customers. It’s a brand value your customers and clients want to see, but it’s not always easy to prove or publicize.

Enter social media: the most public forum for customer interactions ever created. As the social networking sites grow, more and more consumers turn to a brand’s social media profiles to air their questions and concerns.

This is a major opportunity for your company to demonstrate its commitment to prompt, polite customer service that works to really solve the client’s problem. Don’t let the prospect of dealing with unhappy customers in a public way scare you away from the conversation!

We are constantly inundated with bad news. Rioting in a neighboring country. A tsunami on the other side of the world. Violent attacks in your own backyard. As social media marketers, these large-scale disasters present a complex challenge. On the one hand, they generate a lot of buzz on social networks and can be difficult – and dangerous – to ignore. On the other hand, speaking about them requires thoughtful posting and a good sense of timing.

Social media can be an effective way to promote your brand message to a worldwide audience and engage customers on a personal level, but you may be wondering if your company’s content is a fit for the world of 140 characters or less. There are ways to re-purpose and optimize your content for social media, regardless of industry.

Like public relations or media relations, blogger relations are all about the relationship and how you treat it. Your content, personality and approach must be Smart. Fresh. Human.

Follow this quick, three-step guide to effectively develop a long-lasting relationship with bloggers within your industry to support a successful social media strategy:

Life was easy before social media. Your conversations with clients either stayed behind office doors, on the phone or a paper trail. Then email came into the picture with forwarding options and now Facebook (dare I say it?) with commenting on brand pages.

Whether you’re executing a highly strategized social media plan packed with marketable content or simply testing the waters by creating a static Facebook page to secure a piece of online real estate for future use, allowing comments on your brand page comes into question.