While I don’t handle social media for most of my clients, I do like to keep up to date with the latest and greatest. I recently picked up Gary Vaynerchuk’s Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook – How To Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World. It’s a good read.

To boil the book down to one sentence – “Content is king, but context is God.” In other words, tailor the message to the medium. To engage in social conversation and get people to talk about your brand, you have to approach Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest & Instragram and the emerging social networks with the audience, and how they interact with those platforms, in mind.

Other tips:

• Maintain your brand consistency to tell your story
• Use compelling images
• Use clever or relevant copy
• Brand, brand, brand
• Look for big time opportunities to ride social conversations
• Show vs. tell
• Don’t pander/sell

Social media is simple in thought, but challenging in execution. That’s why he includes a number of real world examples from companies to showcase who did it well, not so well and potential areas for improvement.

What tips would you share with a fellow small business to improve their social engagement?