So you have a blog, maybe two, a couple of Twitter feeds, a YouTube channel and a Facebook page. Your company is truly social, isn’t it? Everything on the checklist is in place. But none of these things equates to being truly social. Being social, or being engaged with consumers, is a deep cultural attitude that a company either has or doesn’t have. It isn’t something you can layer on top with a few social network accounts.

Here are just a couple of popular social media tools in use by businesses of all sizes, and a couple questions I would ask in determining if the company is truly engaged through these channels.

Twitter

Is your Twitter account staffed by one or more real people who respond in real time to questions and comments? Or is it a one-way feed? A one-way Twitter news feed can be useful, but it’s not engaged. I follow a few myself. (I don’t expect Wired or the Smithsonian to follow me and respond to my @’s, which is a shame really. We live in an era of reduced expectations.) Do you follow back the majority of people who follow your account, or do you choose not to follow back too many people because you’re worried about the number of direct messages you’ll get, and you’re not sure how to respond to them? That’s a staffing problem, but it’s also an attitude problem. That approach, when you think about it, is like running an ad with an 800 number and then not having people available to answer the phone. I’ve often said Twitter isn’t for everyone, and if you don’t want to engage and reply to every legitimate inquiry, maybe your company isn’t ready for Twitter.

Company Contact Info

Do you have company social media contact info (your Twitter, Facebook, etc. accounts) listed on your main web site? It’s the only way for people to verify your approved social media channels. (Ask BP and ExxonMobil about spurious Twitter IDs.) E-mail isn’t dead, either. Do you have a real email address for people to write to? Do you respond? Contact forms suck. Most consumers recognize them as a waste of time and a way for companies to avoid direct consumer contact. And autoreply emails from a “noreply” account are an insult, and a sure sign a company doesn’t really understand consumer engagement.

Blog

Do you have a company blog? For true engagement, your blog needs to have comments enabled, and moderated (reviewed by an editor prior to posting). Do your bloggers, or appropriate company spokespeople, respond to comments and post these on the blog? These are incredible consumer opportunities. When visitors to the blog see your company executives actively involved in making customers happy and in answering their questions, they will want to engage with your company as well.

These are just a few quick examples of the difference between the tools, which can be static and faceless, and true engagement, which only happens when smart, empowered people step in. Social media isn’t just a form of communications. It’s your company’s frontline public presence, where you have the ability to influence consumers, reach new customers, and make a real difference.