10 tips for social media marketers

Editor’s note: Paula Drum left H&R Block to become general manager of an online shopping site launching this fall. She offers thoughts and guidelines.

Over the last three years, the H&R Block brand has embraced the opportunity to communicate with consumers differently. Traditional media and influential bloggers have taken note of the “tax company that could.”

Most important, consumers have engaged with us in new and different ways through YouTube, Twitter, Second Life, FaceBook, Myspace and our own community site at www.hrblock.com.

Here are some key lessons about social media that every corporate social media marketer should learn:

1. Every brand can be and should be “social.” Conversations about your brand and products are happening everywhere. You need to be part of the conversation, and if H&R Block can make taxes social, your product can be social, too.