The last thing any good general wants to do is go to war with untrained soldiers. Could you imagine devising a clever strategy and then deploying soldiers on the battlefield who don’t know the difference between a muzzle and a breach? The results would be disastrous. Imagine you are a CMO, marketing VP or director and you decide to execute on a social media strategy with untrained soldiers, how well do you think it would go?

Before you choose an agency or consultant to to lead your company into the social media battlefield, make sure its soldiers are well trained in the art of interacting through the medium. How do you know if your firm’s soldiers are prepared? For starters, find out if they are engaged on a regular basis.

As a marketing and PR practitioner, I make it my responsibility to be involved beyond what my employer and clients expect. I blog, I Facebook, I Twitter, I YouTube, I Digg etc…etc…I am so passionate about the practice that I am proud to say David Pogue of the New York Times included me in his book:

In my next blog post, I am going to present a checklist of criteria CMOs, VPs and directors can use to determine the social media expertise level of an agency. Talk soon.

Whenever I am tasked with video responsibilities at my firm, I always make a beeline to YouTube to do dearches and gather inspiration. Today I was searching for some comedy fodder related to technology reporting and I came across this old David Pogue video. Listen to the lyrics closely, it really is well done and demonstrates the power of communicating through the YouTube platform. With over 400,000 visits, it is also a clear demonstration of how powerful this medium is for tech related search.