Over the past few weeks (and months) I have heard more and more companies talking about their digital media strategy.

I recently read a Sapient survey of more than 200 chief marketing officers (CMOs) and senior marketing professionals, all of whom are either directly or indirectly responsible for managing digital marketing budget allocation across multiple channels.  The survey showed what these executives wanted from their agencies today, not next year.

What struck me is that “nearly half (45 percent) of the respondents have switched agencies (or plan to switch in the next 12 months) for one with greater digital knowledge or have hired an additional digital specialist to handle their interactive campaigns.”  This number was staggering as it told me that the opportunity is great for those that understand the space and grim for those that do not.

But, in my opinion, the first step for these executives is to understand the space for themselves.

Social media is not digital media – it is only a small aspect of digital media, and not enough companies understand this fact.  It is not about simply setting up a Twitter profile or your own blog or setting up a Facebook group or a MySpace page. It is about being engaged and engaging and finding the best way to communicate with an audience – your audience.

Social media in its most simple form is only an aggregation of technologies and techniques already in use, including text, audio, images, and video.  Social media enables new interactions with existing content and provides newer, “hip” ways of communicating your message and enhances your entire digital campaign.

This same survey went on to conclude that “ninety-two percent of respondents said it was ‘somewhat’ or ‘very’ important that agency employees use the technologies that they are recommending.  For example, it is important that agency executives regularly use Facebook, Flickr, wikis, blogs, etc. in their personal social media mix.” The only surprising item from that statistic is that only “92%” said it was important, as I am a firm believer in knowing what you do and doing what you know.

But regardless of experience and usage by agencies, for companies, planning should come first.  A step into social media without planning could become disastrous – especially to a larger company that so desperately needs to engage its customers.

An analysis of the current state of the conversation regarding your company, products or services is imperative – failure to do so could place you in an awkward position if the conversation is negative and you had not prepared for it.  Consumers are smarter than you think and will be quick to call you out as a “fake” if your campaign doesn’t understand its target, especially so if the conversation already started as a negative before you ever “arrived.”

Do not try too hard to make your campaign successful, understand that your company has to support your campaign in addition to the agency, and know that in additon to the front end preparation – the back end analysis is equally important.  A solid grasp is needed of the fact that there will be positives and negatives to every campaign, and that each provides a new opportunity for the future.

In short, it scares me that large companies a) can, at times, be led to believe that social media is the only strategy, and b) can continue to “push” their message on the marketplace instead of being a part of their message and “pulling” the marketplace to them.

It is a complex landscape for marketing and a one dimensional campaign is not the solution, but neither is leaving social media on the sidelines.