Last year, businesses and nonprofits might have discussed whether social media might be a useful tool for their particular organization. Now, we know that our customers are looking for us at Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, so we'd better be there.

We hosted the Fargo Twestival and saw for ourselves that social media has the power to make a difference. This year's donations were twice last year's. It can make a difference in your business, too.

If you're ready to stick your neck out,  take a few simple steps to make sure your first forays into the wilds of social media are effective:

• Have a goal.  By choosing a simple, measurable goal, you set yourself up for success, and you can measure the outcome. If you plan to "Improve our company's reputation," you might have difficulty deciding when you've succeeded. If you decide to get 100 followers at Twitter or 500 fans at Facebook, to double the amount of traffic you get through social media, or to gain 30 links through social media,  then you can tell when you've succeeded.
• Recruit some allies. At a party, the animated group with a fun conversation going draws more people than the lonley wallflower. Get your staff, friends, and family to help you kick things off. Start a discussion, and others are likely to join in.
  
• Remember you're not advertising. You can suggest to your whole address book that they become fans of your business page -- once. You can e-mail people and ask them to add a link to your website onto their Facebook pages -- once. It's not intrusive, and some people will be happy to learn about you. Doing it every week is irritating, and doing it every day is spam.
  
• Be interesting. You may get some helpers to kick the conversations off, but you have to say interesting things to keep people coming back. Talk about your new products, sure, but don't forget to share things that are useful and entertaining. And occasionally you can share a little personal tidbit -- but watch out for too much information. Trouble with fellow employees, snarky comments about competitors, or complaints about customers are not going to do your company any good.
• Measure your results. Watch your site analytics for visitors coming to your site from your social media networks, use Facebook Insight , even create a special offfer for your network. All these efforts will help you see what's being most useful for your company or organization. 

Soon, you'll be enjoying your online networking as much as you enjoy meeting people in the physical world.