Embrace the trend, ride the fad:

• Consumers can abandon a specific technology or SoMe brand fast.
• The important thing is the functional benefit of social media for consumers.
• Sociability, mobility, bandwidth, location relevance and low cost are key for brands looking to join the trend.

Aim to participate, not dominate:

• Brands must figure out creative ways to foster and support the social interactions that consumers seek online and offline.
• Aim to be involved in interactions rather than be the subject or star of them.
• This helps brands avoid seeming like pushy salesmen and instead allows them to benefit by joining a social media movement.

Pay attention to location-specific initiatives:

• The bigger the corporation or brand, the greater the tendency for big, remote thinking. This doesn’t jell in the increasingly hyperlocalized world of social media.
• Today’s challenge for brands is how to stay big but scale down to deliver hands-on to local markets.

Stop thinking online/offline; start thinking interaction:

• Dichotomies of online/offline, old media/new media, etc., are not helpful.
• Rather, interaction is key, no matter what blend of media types achieve it.
• Senior executives must not leave communications to people lower in the organization; they must understand social media through experience.
• Corporations also must install savvy executives who can update the company’s approach, or lack of approach, to social media.