Social media spins the notion of marketing on its head, placing the power of the message in the hands and keyboards of the consumers.

Instead of speaking at its target market, social media forces a brand to speak with them. An intimidating prospect, but not one without its solutions as well as its rewards.

To help shed some light on how your brand can apply social media as part of its interactive marketing strategy, LFI University offers a colletion of content geared to provide pointers on how all brands can develop their social (media) skills.

• Full coverage on integrating social media into an interactive marketing strategy, including a Perspective posting, a LeapCast, and an In Depth Analysis
• A LeapCast focusing on an overview of the social media landscape
• Perspectives on how social media can also benefit a brand's search engine marketing efforts and on how a brand can become part of the social conversation and deal with the responses, good and bad,that it will receive

Any brand that neglects or outright ignores social media runs the risk of losing control of the way consumers view the brand. Consumers are out there talking about your brand, both what they like about it and what they don't, whether you are part of the social conversation or not. A lack of social media strategy leaves your brand mute in one forum where silence is not golden. A properly executed social media effort, however, can go a long way toward keeping any negative social buzz under control.

Don't wait any longer to get your social media education underway. Take your pick from the content listed in the left column of this page and start broadening your understanding of the power of social media and how to apply it to your interactive marketing strategy.