“The Acid Test” was popularized during the California Gold Rush of 1849. It was a simple test that gold seekers and traders could use to determine if a rock contained real gold or just base metals.

Precious metals like gold stand up to strong acids without melting, while base metals will begin fizzling and melting. A single drop of powerful acid was all that was needed to prove definitively that a miner had found gold or not.

We’re going through something of a second Internet gold rush this year as social media take hold on a majority of Americans in our daily lives. I don’t need to re-cap the numbers, but the day is coming shortly when more people will read Twitter every day than all the daily newspapers in the US put together.

Brands have a big interest in following any kind of communication that becomes popular with consumers. If CB radios hadn’t run into sunspots and cell phones in the 1990s we would no doubt be hearing “Breaker, Breaker, this is Tiger Woods for EA Sports…”

So brands are trying different experiments to engage consumers through social media. The best brands, the ones that are succeeding early in social media bring several qualities to online social community that govern their brands offline, and now provide guideposts for deciding how to proceed online.

The central theme that comes through the successful social media campaign of any brand is that it’s not a campaign. In many ways it transcends marketing campaigns. It’s not about being “on message.” Social media is more like a market bazzar than a banner campaign. It’s an opportunity for a brand to participate—where its appropriate—in the conversations already occurring in social media communities.

How that’s done is open to experimentation. Brands are using all kinds of strategies, from community monitors (see Best Buy, if you want to see how this is done right) to online video channels, channel partner sponsorships, and Websites devoted to providing services that enhance consumer’s experiences (see Nike’s Nikerunning.com http://nikerunning.nike.com/nikeos/p/nikeplus/en_US/?sitesrc=USPL_integration_tout4 to see how this extends Nike’s running shoe sales with “marketing as a service.”)

But the key is to understand that the brand does not control the conversation. The brand can command great resources to get into the conversation, but you can’t own it. If your brand is strong, well-made, and you communicate that authentically in a spirit of generosity, you will succeed. Many great brands have barely begun to enter into social media, largely because they are marketing-driven organizations run by senior managers who have little understanding and no affinity for new media in general and social media specifically.

Lately older executives I know have asked me for the “Twitter lunch.” This is a lunch where I explain just how in the hell this Twitter thing works and why would anyone in their right might do it?

In the midst of the most serious recession in a generation management becomes more careful and conservative. In most businesses this means “sticking to what we know, and what we do well.” In marketing-driven organizations that means more traditional marketing. These organizations mistake the strangeness of social media for chaos.

The result of this will be that challenger brands will find the social media conversations open to them. Some will take advantage of this mistake to de-stabilize markets and seize market share. Some old line brands ( think Campbell Soups) will understand the opportunity and move into the social media conversations and prosper anew.

Here’s a list of the seven qualities brands need to bring to the social media opportunities they face:

Authentic – Do consumers come to trust that what you’re saying is the truth? Or are you still broadcasting hype? This isn’t about “staying on message,” it’s about staying true to who you are and participating where the conversation goes.

Passionate – If you sell a great product or service, by all means say so. But show a passion for the customer and the customer’s needs, and communicate that clearly and with real commitment.

Consistent – When people get to know you, they know you. But the only way this happens is by communicating who you authentically are consistently. Best Buy has said all employees are authorized to go on the Internet and talk to and respond to customers online. Their online policy is only three words, “Don’t be stupid.” Don’t say anything or do anything online you wouldn’t want the world to know about. Treat people online the way you would treat them in a store.

Helpful – When people gripe online about how your company screwed up, contact them and make it right. Before that happens, find ways to help your customers online in ways that will make a big difference.

Empowering – Brands that give me power, and therefore allow me to do more, will become brands I’m loyal to. This is especially true for brands with online commerce or customer service.

Collaborative—Crowd-sourcing (asking the “crowd” to provide input or feedback) is one simple example of how a company can be collaborative online. But examples like this fall short of the much bigger point about collaboration, which is that I think all employees with public contact need to be prepared to share, discuss and support customers and the general public online.

Unselfish—The Ninja Zen of social media is that as you give out freely to the community, so will you be given back to by the community. Spread your bread upon the waters. This is one of the coolest things about the social media wave we’re in—the very structure of the community rewards people giving unselfishly, usually without even knowing whom you are giving to. One great example of this is Moosejaw Mountaineering (http://r.im/1u95) which has deeply integrated customer recommendations and feedback into their e-commerce, as well as offering a blog and videos about the extreme outdoors sports lifestyle.

These seven qualities each constitute their own form of acid test for a brand moving into social media. If a company’s employees are aligned with these seven virtues and can act on them online then they will be able to make decisions that are consistent with the brand and consistently re-enforce the power of the brand in social media.

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