During a social media presentation last week the president of an organization and business executive said, “sure, these are great tools but it takes so much time.” Absolutely it does, communicating your message through any outlet or tool you are currently using offline takes time as well. Facebook statistics show the average user spends more than 55 minutes a day on the site.

There are oodles of social media tools within which to create a profile, a page, a group, an identity. It's completely addictive once you get into it and have a comfort level with your friends, followers and fans. This makes it really easy to find yourself trying to be in many places at once keeping up with different conversations.

People often ask me for social media rules: How do we communicate? What do you mean have a conversation? What if we don’t have enough fans? How do you handle negativism? Many rules of the road especially with ever-changing social media tools can add to the intimidation factor of engaging. Rather than rules for what to do or not do, here are my 10 suggestions to try. Much more will come of your social media approach if you go beyond what has been tested and challenge yourself to identify new approaches to best achieve your goals.