What are the Top 10 Social Media Questions on Business People's Minds?

I've had the opportunity to present to three entirely different audiences recently on the practice and business value of social media for branding and employee engagement.  The audiences included business professionals in an NC State MBA course on social media; HR professionals who are members of the Human Capital Institute; and Marketing professionals who leverage Communintelligence.com for insights.  I've also had the pleasure of speaking with some other folks living in this space of late, such as Thomas Otter, Gartner Analyst in the Human Capital-Meets IT-space; Jason Alba, author and CEO of career management application, Jibber Jobber; and Paul Pedrazzi, VP of Oracle.

What is on the minds of business audiences today on this subject? What are people asking about during Q&A and in the hallways after the presentations?

1. Why me, why now?  Do I have to do Personal Branding?  Isn't it vain?
2. "Overwhelming."The lists of social networks they "should know about" is too much to handle.  They hear about LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Yammer, Ning, FlickR, YouTube, Second Life, RSS feeds, Blogs, VisualCV, and more ... but they still can't keep up with email!  Where do they start, and do they really have to engage? How can we make it easy?
3. How do I use it? Once they sign up to be on a social network, what next? How can this odd language inclusive of broken English, hash marks and "too much information" be worth the effort?
4. How can this fit this into my time-sunk life? My email and meeting volume is too much as it is.
5. Can this hurt me?Is there risk of manager backlash; waste of time perceptions? Is there risk of disclosure of sensitive, personal or business information?
6. Is there clear value of social media as a business tool in the Enterprise,(or is this just an excuse to goof around like kids on Facebook?)
7. What are some of the wins we could deliver with social media inside our company?
8. What type of resources does this require?
9. How can we this get off the ground inside of a classic "Command and Control," culture which often shares information on a "need to know" basis?
10. How do I encourage people at my company to use these tools?  Once this gets off the ground, what about the people who don't want to participate, who work off-site, or who don't have a PC as part of their job?

For many in the business world who have not yet opted to engage on this subject, the general sentiment goes something like this:

Face Twitch. Shudder. Shudder. Head Shake. Face Twitch. Internal thought: "Won't it just go away?"

I'll share my take on these questions in subsequent posts.  Until then, feel free to share the questions you've been encountering, and your favorite replies if you have them.

------------------ Talk Back ---------------

What are you hearing?

What's concerning to you?

What do you tell others about any of the above?