Definitely true; depending on how social media is used it can either greatly strengthen a brand’s position or miss the mark entirely. As with many facets of social media and internet marketing, what works for one company/brand may not be the best fit for the next.

One of the biggest hurdles facing brands, particularly large brands, with social media is the very issue you mention of not being able to effectively manage communication on such a large scale level. It is important for any brand beginning any social media marketing initiative to find what works for them and put the amount of effort in that they wish to receive in return.

As social media grows and gains even further popularity, we will see how brands begin to handle the market; and as we’ve seen recently, those that engage and put whole-hearted effort into social media will see the return and those who don’t won’t.

Thanks for commenting and keeping the conversation flowing!

Social media is still at an amateurish stage where many big companies are still thinking of how to tap onto this huge media where consumers dominate. There is still no proven method out there which companies can use to build their brand through social media.

Unlike the traditional media, social media is a community where it allows dual communications between brands and consumers. Brands are so used to isolating their consumers to communicate individually (via email, telephone or customer service). If they were to communicate on a broadcast level, they may not be able to handle well and cause even more heated problems between consumers.

Furthermore, there are so many companies out there who build Facebook fan pages for the sake of joining the crowd… Many of these companies have not thought how they can build a full fledge project of handling social media… For example, I have seen some movies setting up fan pages which eventually faced a problem of how to terminate the whole page gracefully…