Knowing when and how to "talk business" through social media outlets, especially like Twitter for example, is important before engaging in such. Before posting anything to a social media site, a business needs to have the message approved and checked through the appropriate people. By ensuring the message posted on social media outlets is appropriate for your client's brand is crucial to keeping their image consistent.
Consistency within social media public relation's efforts helping shape and mold the brand's identity and reputation online. When you think of a company and visit their social media pages, you should have an idea of what to expect, the content on your client's social media shouldn't be shocking or out of the ordinary to their visitors. What ends up being published to a brand's social media should be an extension of their overall reputation, as well as should add value to the visitors and be relevant information shared that their fans/followers/visitors would assume to be interested in.
A way for you to track your client's success or need for improvement of its social media reputation is by constantly monitoring and measuring their various outlets. Through tracking the number of fans, followers and blog hits/visitors, it will be evident whether or not your social media efforts have been efficient. In addition, by tracking your client's mentioned tweets, retweets and Facebook insights on their fan page (which can tell you the break down of what their fans were engaging in the most, whether it be looking through pictures, posting comments or responding to status updates) can give you an idea of where additional social media efforts are needed.
