Today’s Independent carries a useful feature article on businesses’ use of social media. The piece, by Kate Hilpern, is a round-up of views about  how companies large and small can, and should be, taking advantage of blogs and networking sites.

Robert Epstein, head of small and medium businesses at Microsoft, takes the example of restaurants, which might use YouTube or MySpace to take customers behind the scenes visually.  Also, they could “use Twitter to provide regular updates and Facebook and LinkedIn to enable people to post electronic versions of their CV and to connect to other people to get ideas about how to improve,” he suggests.

Brands can benefit from social media to understand what their customers really think. And it’s not really an option – it will still play a role even if they don’t use it proactively. The article recalls last year’s protest by customers of Marks and Spencer, who flocked to a Facebook site complaining about its policy of charging extra for large size bras. Until then, the company had blithely assumed people didn’t mind paying extra.

Plenty of useful advice here as well on how to make the most of social media. See the article here.