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Congratulations, your company has decided to embrace social media on the Internet to help build your brand.

Okay, so now what?

Even after companies decide it's time to take the plunge and cast their gaze toward the Web as a means of reaching out and engaging customers, many get hung up on the actual nuts and bolts of putting together an online strategy.

"It's the wild west, it's like a mine field on Mars," said Maggie Fox, founder of Social Media Group, a consulting firm that specializes in helping companies develop Web 2.0 strategies.

"But if a company is at the point where they are saying 'this is important,' they have a good handle on what is going on, only they usually have no idea how to execute," she said in an interview at the mesh08 conference in Toronto.

Executives in all industries are learning that social media marketing -- whether through viral advertising, banner marketing or interactive Internet campaigns -- is a highly targeted and measurable means of disseminating their message, and they want in on the party.

"The biggest issue they have is that they don't know how to get started — how to take that first step," she said "There's this perception that the Internet is crazy and it's totally un-understandable in a place that is totally frightening and foreign to them."

More and more companies are discovering the power of social media as a means of putting their brand into the online consciousness.

"The great irony is that the Internet is this frightening scary place but it's also something that you can demonstrate almost immediately what the results and impact were," she said. "It's the most measurable thing that you can spend your money on; we can measure it upside down, sideways and backwards."

The first step, Ms. Fox said, is to listen to what is being said about the company in the online community, which can sometimes be upsetting to executives.

"Getting involved in social media doesn't make bad comments happen," she said. "It doesn't make create feedback, it just makes it visible."

Often, executives are alarmed at the sheer number of negative comments about their brand circulating online. However, many companies often don't understand that not all bloggers, or online voices, are created equal.

To illustrate this, Ms. Fox's firm uses a sophisticated ranking system -- a "secret sauce" -- which determines the actual influence or sway that a particular blog or commentator holds on the Internet. This helps her clients to identify meaningful targets for conversation and damage control.

Another tidbit of advice she often offers her clients: don't be afraid to suck.

"It is okay to suck because negative is the new positive," she said. "It sounds like a joke, but I say it all the time. If you know you suck, you're farther along than the person who is not involved, because now you know what to fix."

Just make sure you avoid the corporate-speak.

"You need to be who you are in your regular relationships and that's how you need to behave as an individual, and you need to have that mindset as a company," she said.