The hype around social media is really deafening out there, isn’t it? Print and television media seem to have an affinity for spinning the social story, meaning that for those who learn about the online world from traditional media, the Web has largely been reduced to Twitter and Facebook.

Unfortunately, that group includes a lot of decision makers who are getting worried they’re getting left behind by their competitors with 372 Facebook Fans.

For the vast majority of small and medium sized businesses, the ROI of social is minimal at best. Given the many businesses that are still just coming online, social is an afterthought to the core work of building and iterating your online strategy.

Or we can put it this way: it’s the proverbial cherry on the cake of your online strategy– dessert so to speak.

Don’t let it get in the way.

That being said, when it’s appropriate to build a social media presence, make sure it’s enlivened with a solid strategy. Have a purpose, measurable goals, and a way to measure the success or failure of those goals before you blow life into your Twitter account.

Here’s a couple minutes of very wise talk by some bright people who are trying to figure all of this out (courtesy of MediaShift):

The entire video is excellent, one of the more intelligent and rational discussions of social media I’ve seen. I strongly encourage you to view it when you have twenty minutes or so if you are considering whether to build a social media presence: