I don’t think every company should be active Facebook or MySpace, or whatever current hot social media site is out there. Twitter is hit-and-miss, since sometimes it’s hard to find value.

I can see companies having a Facebook page, but I think it should be have a static, direct-to-here function to drive traffic to the main web portal. On the business resource side, I think it’s too much effort for a company to try to manage Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, in addition to all the other business goings on. Especially for small companies, and goes double for the current economic climate. Spend time getting customers, not entertaining people with nothing to do (gasp!!!! did I just say that?).

This isn’t a broad, everything-goes statement. Some companies will find some value, other won’t. But here’s why I am cautious- it’s the Internet. For the most part, anonymous and ambiguous, the Internet caters to the lowest common denominator. Just like in real life, you mostly see things that are negative, rather than positive.

Overall, Facebook is personal, meant for connecting with friends, etc. I believe that personal should be kept separate from work. Actually, this is impossible to do, but for the most part I don’t think everything you do needs to be online.  So a company can make a decision not to be active online, where it’s clients/fans/etc. are safe to be themselves without having conflicting incidents. Prevent embarrassing moments from happening by eliminating the forum for them.