The last few months have seen an unprecedented rush by email marketers to stake their claims in the new and burgeoning social media territories. As the number of social media participants continues to increase exponentially and brand presences proliferate in lockstep, it is important to avoid rash hastiness in the enactment of your social media strategy.

So, instead of jumping in too quickly, strive to make your implementation painless and successful for both your brand and your customers. Here's how you can do that.

Add One Element At A Time
When you’re taking the plunge into social media it’s not a good idea to follow Freddy Mercury’s famous lyric of “I want it all and I want it now”. 

Launching a social media campaign on Day One with a full-blown presence on Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, and a half a dozen other sites can be counter-productive. Not only will you be spreading yourself too thin, but your rollout will seem too “corporate” and not “organic” enough.

The social networks have their own forms of etiquette which take a bit of time to absorb, so you may want to “learn the ropes” on a not quite top tier social network such as Skyrock or MySpace before you leap into Facebook.

Limit your expansion to the social networks that are most relevant to your brand and that you can adequately service because social media is all about conversation and if you can’t reply to queries in a day or less, you’re missing the boat.

Cater Your Speed To Your Segments
If your email list centers on iPhone apps or gaming video cards you can certainly probe the ragged edge of experimentation in state of the art social media communication, as you can be certain that your audience is more than hip enough. However, if your brand deals in mobility scooters or walk in bathtubs, you would be well advised to take the slow road to embracing social media.

Older and less Internet savvy customers may still be confused by social media, or even outright wary of it. Take a good hard look at your demographic segmentation and tone down the speed and intensity for the prospects who might be scared off by it.

Announce Your Plans
You should not limit your social media presence promotion only to a button on your email marketing campaign messages. Discussing your presence in your newsletter, on your blogs and on your site will draw considerable extra attention and traffic.

If your brand has a sizable conventional media budget, provide your Facebook Fan Page or Twitter name on your ads. If you need more convincing, check out how many major corporations are now promoting their Facebook pages rather than their website URLs on network TV commercials.

Don’t Expect Instant Results
With the recent news that Facebook has topped half a billion users, many unsophisticated email marketers expect that they can slap up a Fan Page, engage in some light banter with a bunch of FBers, and triple gross sales by the weekend.

Unfortunately, establishing a successful social media presence takes a considerable amount of time and effort. Not only will you have to work hard at increasing the number of Facebook fans and Twitter followers, but you will need to keep them constantly engaged with relevant content and conversation.

You may find that your social media marketing may actually under perform at first as your brand builds up its “street cred.” Social media participants tend to place a greater emphasis on reputation than you might think, so simply presenting them with good selection, discounted prices, and the rest of the conventional marketing approaches may not be the best way to social media success.

If you can intrigue and enchant the social media crowd with your brand’s focused relevance and online responsiveness, you will have found the key to avoiding social mediocrity and achieving social mediawesomeness.