For this week’s Social Media Take Away I’m featuring a post that I read last week in The Future Buzz blog, 50 Blogging Lessons To Know If You’re Starting Today. Adam Singer has a great blog going over there, one that I’ve been reading for nearly a year.

I’ve been doing this blog on here for less than a year, and to read some of the points on here that Adam makes is great for not just myself, but for anyone looking to start a blog, or looking to integrate blogs into their work or communications plans.

For entrepreneur’s, small business owners, and self-starters of any kind I would say that you should get started using social media. In fact, this should have been the first post in the Social Media Take Away series, but hey I’m improvising and making things up as I go here…

What is social media?

Social media is any web tools that allows groups to generate content and engage in peer-to-peer conversations and exchange of content (examples are YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc…)

Social media is particularly valuable for entrepreneur’s, small business owners, and self-starters in-general, I’m thinking artists – painters, musicians and the like, because it gives them low cost, high value, far reaching exposure for whatever they’re doing. As I write more about the social media value, I’ll cover some of these. For starters, I would say see this post on Twitter or items tagged with social media on this blog. Though, I’ll be covering stuff more in-depth, and high level, alike as I develop this feature of the blog.

Update: It’s been two years since I wrote this post and with Twitter, the hype has increased, but it’s value is still very much in question. I continue to watch what they’re doing, but I’ve since deleted my Twitter account because the signal:noise ratio is very low and that only contributes to what it offers in the way of value. For me, it doesn’t offer much value, but I’m eagerly awaiting a change on this front, though, it’s unlikely one will come.

I talk to a lot of people about Twitter. I was a serious non-believer in Twitter, for a long time. I registered an account not long after they opened up shop, and I just didn’t get it. I mean, I got it, but the idea of micro-blogging, and “What are you doing now?” seemed to be creepy and narcissistic, actually I still feel that way, but I have found value in it.

It’s not that I care so much about what somebody just ate for breakfast, or that they’re stuck in traffic, or “so excited for the weekend!” which may have some value among groups of Twitter users, but next to none for the general Twitter pool. However, it’s the quick blurbs of information with links to articles I’m interested in, interviews, and other information that has really pulled me into being a user.

The take away: If you’re looking for articles, information, breaking news and the like, I would say that Twitter has dp,r value. I would also say that if you tweet about your work, your interests, etc… and it caters to the sort of PR and tech folks that are on Twitter then they might get the message, and you might be able to build interest in what you’re doing locally; eventually making real-world, physical contacts.