• by Karl Greenberg , September 27, 2010

Panelists said look to your own company for social media management but make sure they aren't merely looking for a means of self aggrandizement.

Josh Karpf of Pepsi says passionate both about the space and the brand. "The First thing we do in interview is ask 'what are you reading?' The space is moving so fast, with location based, customer service, so much is changing in the space you need someone who craves that. The PepsiCo 10 lets us do that. Someone who follows brand innovations that are going on is a great way to start."

Marcy Cohen, SR manager at Sony says the company has two agencies handling a pair of new Facebook pages and Twitter. "We try to keep everything under one Facebook page at Sony Electronics but we have two others pages focused on product. At first I was not a big fan of having any third party company creating content or managing our pages," she said. "I felt it wasn't authentic. But we decided to give it a try."

She said that the company's online ebook store is run by a Boston based digital firm. "They help create content and help with dialogue but it's all run past us. It's kind of annoying they have to get approval and they really understand this."