For all the talk about social media, many companies are jumping on the bandwagon without really thinking through whether the investment in time, resources and money is a good move.

By that, I mean it’s important to ask some basic but, nevertheless, critical questions:

1. Why does your company want to embrace social media? Is it because social media offers a new way to build relationships with consumers and, hopefully, drive higher sales? Is the move motivated by the fact social media just sounds sexy so it’s something that needs to be implemented? Or is it because the competition is using it?

2. What are your goals, and how will social media help you achieve them? Is it higher sales? Will it help with customer service? Will it enhance the brand and the company’s competitiveness? Will it provide valuable feedback and product development intelligence?

3. Who’s going to run the day-to-day social media operations. Launching social media tools is pretty straightforward; the hard part is consistently working them to get the targeted results. Truth be told, social media success rarely happens overnight; it’s a game of inches as opposed to miles. That means it can take time to see tangible signs of progress and success.

4. What does success look like, and how are you going to measure it?

5. How will social media get baked into your corporate culture? Social media needs to be embraced and tightly integrated into a company’s operations. It may be the belle of the ball right now but without dance partners, social media is going to stand on the sidelines doing nothing but looking pretty.

For some more good insight on social media, check out this Q&A with consultant Oliver Blanchard.