Social media, if you’re doing it well, implies openness, honesty, transparency, and fallibility to a degree that makes many business leaders uncomfortable.

Social media require that companies not only invest time and money, but also soul and effort. I think that too many companies reduce social media investment to a marketing expense, rather than buying into its implications for corporate culture. The resulting lack of return then justifies defunding the investment.

In tough times, bad companies look to the wrong places to make cuts. They skimp on capital improvements, for example, while overspending on short-term items. Plenty of these folks will look past social media, thinking of it as “fluff,” instead of probing to realize that it offers all kinds of benefits that are highly cost-effective & deserve investment.

The considerations that Owyang & Monty raise in the links I’ve just added are particularly germane in this connection.

Michael brings up a good point, the money could easily be wasted without a solid plan and defined goals, but I think all too often companies and individual execs look at Social Media as having different goals than the core of their business and their existing revenue streams. Ultimately the tools that are built to help customers and prospects communicate with the business and each other support the business, shore up the foundations and provide new opportunities to learn and expand.

It comes down to communication. This new wave of tools makes it easier to connect and discuss with all of your clients, not just those few who you call or who call you.

I’ll wrap it up by saying that now is the time to invest in the core of your business. For every business that core is made up of customers, and for the first time in a very long while there is a real opportunity to renew and improve upon relationships. The cost to add social media tools to a company (it goes far beyond the Web or the ‘Net as a whole) is minor, while the benefits, both spreadsheet-tangible and emotionally-driven are great. We’ll see the good companies stand a little taller when we come out of the current economic downturn, rising above the insular and fearful.