Having a proper Social Media Strategy is essential if you want to connect to your clients in a way that adds Value to your business these days. First you need to be 'found' online and after that, you need to be able to search and interact with the right people online avoiding those that just cost you time and don't add any Value to your real life business goals.
The internet is changing rapidly, it is no longer a place where you just have 'a website' and hope that the clients will find it, it now has reached our TV's, set top boxes, game-computers, videos, navigation hardware, etc. through widgets which form the new internet. Your clients want to be served anywhere on every platform using their favorite widgets on their favorite networking portal. Since you don't have the time to use and manage all those thousands of tools and portals, you will quickly notice that you need a web 2.0 and 3.0 strategy aggregating everything into manageable centralized actions.
In other words, it is time to think about your personal or corporate brand online and to define a proper social media policy for your employees so that you can use their online networking strength in order to serve your customer.
Knowing about strategies in RSS streams, widgets, tweets, instant (video / audio) messaging and networking portals makes the difference. Not just by using the 'tools' but by doing it in a targeted manner in a 'targeted way':
You need to know 'where and how' to find the right people with a minimum of time and effort spend online which leaves you a maximum of time with valued people in real life business.
For anyone or any company starting an online strategy it is recommended to begin with the novice course. This course gives you a general impression on what is going on in the rapidly changing world of Web 2.0. It will answer the question: what is important to me and my company? What do I need to do to form a feasible online strategy? How can I reach my customers online in an easy way, without spending too much time.