There are two ways to use social media.

Maggie Fox is the keynote at Social Fresh Tampa today. And she is talking about ways to broadcast. Big Brands only understand advertising, so social media becomes another vehicle for advertising. Her formula is to combine Earned PR with Paid Advertising and syndicate it through the Brand’s channels.

It’s not a big concept. It’s just using an Earned piece of publicity and re-purposing it over and over. Syndication means that your company – every company – is now a media organization. You have a chance to control the message — in a way. (On social networks, you only have the illusion of control.)

Best quote from one panel: “Advertising is the tax your business pays for being unremarkable.”

The other way to use social networks is to engage your marketplace. Listening is the important first step. The second step is to create compelling content. The final step is to engage your audience. Interact with them.

My rule of thumb is re-tweet two tweets; tweet two interesting(and hopefully original) items; and reply to two things daily.

The number of followers is irrelevant (unless you are a Big Brand). It’s the number of listeners that you have that is significant.

Give them something to listen to. Give them something to repeat.

Tell them a story about you, your product or service, your employees, your charity, your customers. That’s human interest.

You need to be a story-teller and a good listener.

If you are a small business, you probably want the second way. If you are a big Brand, you are probably trying to figure out how to capitalize on the first way (Earned+Paid+Syndication). It boils down to advertising versus WOM. Word-of-Mouth is the friend of small business.