I read two good social media how-to guides this week:
First, Toby Ward at the Intranet Blog linked to Bill Ives' recent post on a 'Sample Action Plan for Business Blogging'. Ives presents a good high-level plan that lists the steps you need to take in order to successfully launch (and, obviously, maintain) a business blog. This is assuming, of course, that you already have a blogging strategy that is aligned with both your business and marketing strategies. And note that by 'aligned' I also mean that it makes sense for you to actually start and maintain that blog!
Second, Laurel Papworth recently gave an excellent presentation on how to plan and run a social media marketing campaign. She's put her slides and a quick bullet-point list of those steps on her blog. This is a must-read for anyone involved in social media -- even if you don't plan to run a social campaign yourself -- because a stripped down version of this plan is what you execute when you launch a blog and, more generally, it's a good overview of how social media itself works. Besides, you'll inevitable be a part of such a campaign at some point in your life so it's good to know what's going on.