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Dawn Nicole Baldwin is one of the founders of Aspire One, a company that helps churches with creative strategies and branding.  She gave out free candy.  Better yet a kind I'd never had before in my life.  A banana Tootsie Pop.  So good.  But more importantly she gave us some social media do's and do not's.

Five Ways to Kill Your Brand

• Be unprepared. Just because it's free, you can't jump in without a plan.
• Put the wrong people in charge.  Needs to be thought of as a "first touch" communication not something we pass on to whoever.
• Set it and forget it.  People expect a response. It sends a message that you don't really care about this format if you're not participating.
• Don't add value. It's about sharing resources. It's not only about you. If this is you, you'll be ignored.  Add to the conversation.
• Expect miracles. This is not a substitute for other avenues.  For example, some folks say, "Now that we have Facebook, we don't need a website anymore."

Five Good Take Homes

• Understand the primary purpose of social media. It's about connecting and sharing.
• Determine what you hope to accomplish before jumping in. How are you going to measure it?  Do more people know about you?  Are you measuring comments?  It doesn't have to be traditional measures.
• Find your voice. In a transparent world you can't hide who you really are. Plus you need to be consistent.
• Know your audience.  What needs are you filling?  How do they like to be communicated to and connected with?
• How does this connect to what we are already doing?  Just repeating the same stuff on multiple platforms will be ignored.