I’ve been spending the past few days talking to the marketing agencies that run ‘experiential’ campaigns for brands. These are events held in stores, festivals, etc., where companies can interact directly with consumers to showcase a new make of car, the latest game console or mobile phone or whatever.

Social media has been playing a big role in these campaigns. If you take a roadshow to, say, ten major cities, or take a stand at a couple of big music festivals, you can interact directly with thousands of consumers. Creating a campaign website has always been seen as a way to extend the reach of the campaign to reach other people.

But in the past year, agencies have been going further, filming people at these events and then posting the clips on the website and YouTube. They are also creating their own Facebook and Twitter pages and encouraging people to create and share their own content.

An example: Adidas created a campaign to drive awareness of the tie-up with UEFA Champions League, visiting five different locations in the UK and inviting 10-14 year olds to show off their football skills. On its own that was never going to reach a lot of people. But by encouraging the kids to share their experiences the total reach was over  800,000 consumers.

Another is VW, which avoided conventional advertising when promoting its new camper vans and instead started an online dialogue with the camping community via social media, using content generated at marketing events.

The agencies make the point that social media is different from other forms of marketing. It’s not about pushing your message out, it’s about getting consumers to interact with you, by providing engaging events, competitions and other stuff that they are likely to be interested in, and then encouraging them to share it.

Some companies do worry about not being able to control what goes out – it’s just not what they are used to. It’s important to be aware of the pitfalls. For instance food brands who tried to copy the famous Cadbury gorilla ad, and get the same sort of exposure on YouTube, were heavily criticised, as their efforts lacked the creativity and spontaneity of the original.

But done well, it really works, the agencies say. And where experiential marketing used to be seen as a low-cost add-on to conventional advertising, the use of social media has suddenly made it into a viable alternative – and at virtually no extra cost.

The Pope is encouraging priests to get in on social media.

He obviously gets it. He is telling priests not to bother just sticking up times of church services, but “to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources (images, videos, animated features, blogs, websites) which, alongside traditional means, can open up broad new vistas for dialogue, evangelisation and catechesis.”

“The increased availability of the new technologies demands greater responsibility on the part of those called to proclaim the Word, but it also requires them to become more focused, efficient and compelling in their efforts,” he goes on.

Good advice for any business, too.

Granted it is relatively easy to set up your own Twitter channel, YouTube page or Facebook presence, but a lot of companies are rushing in and not applying the usual disciplines that they would apply for other media. It is possible to build your own website for free on the web, but what serious company would do that?!  Companies appoint agencies to help them plan, deliver and maintain web sites. And serious companies should do the same for social media. It is simply too important to treat in an amateurish way.

There are different divisions of social media practitioners  in the world of business. Some are light years ahead of others because they have thought seriously about their social media strategies. They have not just dived in and set something up to demonstrate they are doing something.

Instead they have developed plans, resourced them properly and thought through what will work best. They have also listened to what is being said online and realised that social media requires companies to behave and act differently. Simply transferring existing corporate materials into the social media space is not going to work.

The other point that some companies fail to appreciate is that social media networks and platforms are in essence empty vessels. It is what you do with them that matters. How you use them is crucial. Of course you can channel anything through Twitter. But what is really going to appeal to your audience? You might want to start a blog, but is it appropriate? Will people bother to read it? Are you sure your audience will want to actually spend their valuable time reading it? Social media requires a more professional approach.

How does an organisation maintain control of its brand through social media? How can you protect your brand from the myriad of comments, videos, and tweets?

If you are absent from what is going on through social media then you are at the mercy of those people who are commenting on you.  You have in effect abdicated your role. You have surrendered the story to others.  To prosper in social media you need to be there telling your story. If you are not, others – including negative story tellers – will do the job for you.  So it is essential you participate.

Participation means listening, correcting and contributing and above all respecting the communities who are talking about you online.  You don’t have to respond to everything that is being said. You can be selective or address a group of comments through one post. But you have to be there.

Who would sit on their hands while the FT writes articles about you? No one.  So why should you sit on your hands when thousands and sometimes millions of people – your customers – are talking about you now through social media networks?