But, social media for small businesses can be tricky. Which avenues do you pursue? What do you write? What the heck is a hash tag? Who keeps following me? My best advice is: copy the cool kids. It’s awesome to be an early adopter, but the products being used out there are the ones that work. I use Facebook because almost 600 million people use Facebook. I use Wordpress for blogging because it’s easy to use. Why would you make life hard for yourself?

It can all sound a little overwhelming, but it isn’t if you learn to harness the power of these tools correctly. For a small business this is essential and the goal should always be to leave a social media footprint with all of your online marketing activities driving consumers to your business website.

After years of using social media for my businesses, I’ve definitely made mistakes and learned a lot about the interaction capabilities of these tools. Below are 12 tips to increase your social media footprint and harness the exponential power of social media.

1. The Interaction Economy is replacing the Experience Economy as an anticipatory approach to creating customer value. Interacting with your customers will have them coming back.

2. Research all of the social media sites out there. Find the ones that work best for your business. If you make children’s clothing, you wouldn’t market to engineers.

3. SEO, Search Engine Optimization (helping those pesky search engine spiders find your site and rank it at the top) is important but needs to be combined with a solid plan for Search Engine Visibility (SEV).

4. Get to know what your competitors are doing in the social media sphere and read what social media pros have to say. They know what they’re talking about.

5. Tagging. Tag in Facebook to mention clients, customers, sites or vendors (use the @ symbol in front of the name you wish to tag). Tag in Twitter to spread the word to the Twitterverse (tag with the @ symbol to mention a specific person/group and # to tag a concept). Tag your blogs to increase search possibilities. Tag (and title well) videos to YouTube and Flickr.

6. Social media in the short term doesn’t work. You have to be in it to win it. Be persistent, consistent and committed.

7. Read about technology. It changes. Often. Like, everyday.

8. Interactions count. Every like, comment, Re Tweet: they all count.

9. Who you are and where you come from matters. People want to know they are dealing with real people, not machines.

10. Use Google Alerts to see who is talking about your business and anything related to your business.

11. Anyone who owns a small business can participate in social media, but not everyone actually does. That is to your advantage.

12. If you have a spare hour or two each day to surf the net, watch TV or stare into space, you have more than ample time to commit to implementing and using social media for your business.

How long have you been using social media for your small business? What have you found works best?

As much as I love watching the game, I am always more pumped to see some awesome commercials. Looking back on the advertising fare offered up Sunday, however, I am left feeling disappointingly under whelmed.

The “old standbys,” aka Budweiser/Bud Light, Doritos, and Coca-Cola, usually make commercials that leave me entertained, but this year I barely remember anything they did. The Doritos “Grandpa’s Ashes” and “Pug Attack” spots made me giggle a little, but they hardly inspired me to go buy a bag of Doritos. The Coca-Cola “Border” commercial was a pretty good concept, but I’m not sure what the “Dragon” commercial was all about. (I was frankly more interested in a plate of hot wings than in really watching it.) Bud Light, which in my opinion has the funniest commercials on average, did not produce anything really worth talking about.

For me, though, the biggest letdown was Snickers, choosing to once again run its “You’re not yourself when you’re hungry” campaign. The campaign produced the very talked-about commercial last year featuring Betty White playing football, and was one of the most popular Super Bowl spots of the year. However, just because the spot was successful last year does not mean they should have repeated the concept for a second year. Each 30-second Super Bowl ad costs upwards of $3 million dollars, and should be a time to showcase new, unexpected and entertaining ideas. Although other companies did not have many great commercials this year, at least they chose to invent something new instead of using something that’s already had a year to be played out. In the end, all Snickers did was deliver a commercial with a punch line we already knew.

There was one commercial that was very memorable: Volkswagen’s “The Force.” With over 21 million views on YouTube already, it is a clear hit with viewers, and for obvious reasons. A cute kid in a full Darth Vader outfit is hard to beat. Plus, the commercial effectively showed off the car and some of its cool features, such as its keyless start.

With football season officially over, players have time to rest and reflect on next season. My advice to advertisers: you should do the same.

Do you agree? Were the ads a major flop this year, or did they resonate with you?

The going rate for each 30-second spot this year is $3 million. And multiple companies, such as Coca-Cola, Doritos and Anheuser-Busch spend double or triple that for more than one spot. (Anheuser-Busch will air five ads this Sunday – wow!)

A company’s Super Bowl ad goal is most likely to garner attention. Snickers’ ad last year didn’t really tell me much about the product or the brand, beyond continuing to tickle viewers with witty and clever commercials. Was I compelled to grab a Snickers in the middle of my yoga class, magically transforming my workout? Unlikely. But it got people talking.

Audi’s “Green Police” commercial stuck out among the best for me. Is it over the top? Of course. But Audi distinctly honed the message that they take protecting the environment seriously. And they’re proving it by manufacturing eco-friendly cars (at least in comparison to what else is on the road).

A company should be cognizant of what message they’re trying to get across to the consumer. Among stiff competition, sometimes that message can get muddled in an effort to stand out. E*TRADE’s message and brand identity wasn’t altogether clear from their baby commercials, but they sure got a lot of attention (read: unpaid air time). The “best” Super Bowl commercials get even more publicity and creative recognition than the 30-second spot that aired. Why? Because everyone’s talking about them. That’s the ultimate goal. If the water cooler chitchat is positive for a brand, then maybe $3 million price tag was worth it.

Can’t wait until Sunday? Here’s a sneak peek at this year’s commercials.

So marketers, CEOs and CMOs taking care of how your brand is seen and perceived are the expertise of the ad guy. Making a product that is worth changing perceptions for is yours.

It makes what we ad guys do seem a little shallow, but it is what we do. We help clients change or perpetuate perceptions. It’s branding. Whether your brand is an energy drink, a car or a 15-year-old boy who needs a date to prom, it’s all the same. Affect the perception of your brand, and the consumer (or 15-year-old girls) will follow.

Add value without changing the product? The Shreddies “case study” in the video below is gut busting. (TED now has an iPhone app you can get to see all your favorite videos.)

Sutherland is right. “Poetry is when you make new things familiar and familiar things new.” That is what we do, or at least try to do (again, on good days).

So take a listen and get ready to smile, and then figure out how right Mr. Sutherland is.

Rory Sutherland: Life lessons from an ad man (part 1 of 2).

This week we decided to have some fun and focus on the history of one of our favorite holidays – and provide you with a scary lesson on the origin of Halloween. Check out the videos below, and feel free to post your frightening thoughts about one of the oldest and most popular holidays celebrated today – and how some major brands reap the benefits. Or come by on Friday and we’ll knock back some hot cider and talk about that time you dressed up as Alex P. Keaton.