It never ceases to amaze me that lack of insight companies put into their “social media strategy”. Why do companies think that just putting up something on the Internet means they are going to generate business as if the World owes them a favour.

The fact is putting up a Facebook page or creating a Twitter account for your company doesn’t mean you’ve gone all Web 2.0. The “social” part of social media means engaging and interacting with people - this isn’t simply a broadcast medium.

The media have been ever ready to attack anything Internet related as either the root of all evil or a fad that will disappear after a short period of time.

Social media websites, being the “new” thing have been repeatedly attacked as a bubble ready to burst - a claim I’ve always thought was way off the mark. My opinion was that users were becoming more mature and using websites in a different way with just some flaky users just stopping use.

Well Facebook have announced their first 100 million users (although how many inactive accounts is a mystery) and Hitwise is showing Facebook traffic is up 50% year on year. Now these are hardly figures showing a bubble bursting are they?

People like to socialise and it’s only natural they’re going to extend this online if the tools are available.

Wait for a bus and then two come along at once? Well same thing today but with social media websites.

Firstly Smarta.com is billing itself as a information resource for business. Essentially providing social support for your business or future business projects. With the official launch in November 2008 you can check out the blog and register for updates as they come. I’m going to keep an eye on this one as it seems to be backed by some big names like Vodafone and various UK Government agencies.

The next one is called GetCloser.com which is social media site built on your music and film tastes. It’s produced by HMV and isn’t getting the best of press. I’ve had a discussion with Scott Boyd at Fused Nation and he’s got some valid points about how this service is basically a cynical customer profiling system. While I agree about HMV’s motivation for this website I have to say I actually think it’s a very clever way of getting excellent quality data from your customers - you’ve got to respect that.

Are people willing to trade a window into their World for a few nice features on a website? On the whole the answer is yes - people are far too free and easy with their information in my opinion. The law can cover data protection but if people want to hand their personal information over to every Tom, Dick and Harry then they should learn not to be so naive. In the same way that regulation of social networks for children should take the lead from parents protection of your data should start at home.

However other aspects of GetCloser’s marketing of this site are darn right stupid with their marketing agency spamming forums with beta test invitations. Yeah I’ll sign up! Not!

So the Wispa is going back into production thanks to campaigns on various social media sites such as Facebook and MySpace.

The really big question for me is how did Cadbury’s come to the conclusion to discontinue the Wispa in the first place? Everyone I know loves them!