The buzz keeps growing for social media. Everyone is an expert. Everyone should be an expert. This new form of communication is important and fast becoming the standard.

If you are not an expert yet, here are four tools to get started:

1. Do you have a first name? Excellent.
2. Do you have a last name? Wonderful.
3. Can you make up a personal ID? Great.  My ID is newmediaphoto, or sometimes I use Rosh03.
4. Now for the hard part. You need to make up a 6-8 character password no one can figure out. Sorry, I’m not going to share mine.

If you can remember all four tools and give yourself a little time to become familiar with Web sites, you can call yourself a social media expert. There are thousands of places to use these tools, but the main ones are LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

Congratulations, now you are a social media expert!

Here’s the problem: It’s not about what social media is, or what to join or what to say. The question is not what. It’s why. Why do you need to be on Twitter? Maybe you don’t. Social media public relations has little to do with being on the shiniest new platforms. It has to do with where your target market is hanging out.

Your target market may be hanging out in the worst forums on the net or, God help us, on MySpace. Your opinion doesn’t count. Use your four expert tools, find your target, and offer information your market finds interesting. You can’t always make your target market come to you. Make sure you set up camp where they like to build community.

When considering a new social media Web site or application, ask yourself: Why are you there? Why are others on the site?Why would they care about the information you’re sharing?

Rosh