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Maggie Fox is easy to get a hold of—she answers her e-mail instantly, maintains a Facebook page and writes a blog that appears on the website of her Dundas, Ontario-based company. Fox is the very personification of Social Media Group, a two-year-old company she created to capitalize on the reinvention of the Internet as a place where businesses develop relationships with their customers rather than just show them ads.

In July, her nine-employee agency became a major player in the fledgling social media industry after it was awarded a global contract from Ford Motor Co. to handle its online image and outreach. Here, Fox talks about how she scored her firm's most high-profile client and what small businesses need to do to conquer this often confusing new realm

In a sentence or less, what is social media? That's like trying to explain art. It's how we interact with each other online. It's about behaviour; the technology is actually kind of irrelevant.

Who turned you on to the Ford contract? We received a call asking if we'd be willing to meet with the VP of communications in Dearborn, Michigan. They were looking for social media assistance, so of course I said yes. No matter what happened, it had to be a good thing.

Did you know what they were looking for? They wanted a company that specialized in social media and really understood the space. My objective was to find out what they did and what their needs were. The same day, they offered us a contract. It was not massive—there was a period to see what they were getting into. We developed a strategy for them, launched an exploration process and said what we thought they should do. That led to a much larger, longer-term engagement.

What does a global contract like that do to a small company? We were lucky in that our office space, a restored 1830s house in downtown Dundas [outside Toronto], was large to begin with, so we still have lots more room left to grow. We tried mainstream recruitment sites, and got totally unqualified and inappropriate candidates. We had much better luck with a small Canadian boutique job-posting site—redcanary.ca. Three employees found us that way.

What did you recommend to Ford? I can't go into too much detail because a lot of stuff is still cooking. But one thing we recognized early on was the value of Ford's content—video, audio, pictures and text. A wonderful way to help them tell their story was to set a lot of it free. One of the first things we did was customize a social media press release template specifically for Ford.

How is that different from a normal press release? It's multimedia. It has all of the assets available to tell that story in one place. Instead of hosting it on a server, we do our hostings on YouTube and Flickr. People can access the information in different ways. It's the press release for 2008. It's not a piece of text—it's everything that someone needs.

How does Ford measure your performance? That's a question you'd have to ask them. We're extremely metrics-focused; every program we do, we go to the client afterward and show them how many people accessed the content. Another big piece is blogger outreach—we find influential people in the space and invite them to events. It's very traditional in that sense: we do a clip sheet and say, here are the stories that came out of that event.

How does a small business get started in social media? The first thing they should be doing is reading the blogs of the people who affect their business. It never hurts to try to establish a relationship with them—but doing that isn't about sending them junk e-mail; it's commenting on their blogs and interacting.

That sounds intimidating. How do you figure out where to start? The best way to get your head around it is to participate. Start your own blog. That's how you learn—you don't learn by reading books, but by having a Facebook page, understanding how the tools work in a way that can help you communicate.

How do employees convince their boss that social media is worthwhile? You need to show value. If you can say, "Look, here's what our competitor is doing," and show some of the benefits they're receiving, that's pretty powerful.

What's a tangible example? If you want to reduce your cost per lead, for example, social media is a great way of doing that because, as opposed to having to go and physically talk to people at their office, you can set up a blog and engage with potential customers that way.

What can social media help you achieve? There is no one-size-fits-all. What are you trying to do? In PR or communications, the objective is coverage. If it's marketing, it might be about reducing cost per lead. For others, it's about having a platform to discuss the product that is filter-free. A place for an open discussion, so you don't just have to rely on a press release and news story.

Any parting advice for small operators? It's not as complicated as you think. If you can talk to your friends, you can talk to the world via social media.