At the March Web Innovators Group meeting here in Boston, it really hit me how our engaging people on social networks, by sharing what we know and what we are doing in social media, has had an incredibly positive impact for SocialGrow’s brand awareness and recognition in the real-world.

I felt like everyone at the event had seen Jennie White’s “5 Startups Who Are Killing it on Twitter” article she had published earlier that day, so immediately recognized SocialGrow on my nametag and knew who I was. I can’t say I’ve ever experienced that before at an event. Everyone wanted to know more about our software application, and how we’re using Twitter to reach out to potential users. We all know how much easier it is to talk about your company, your brand, and your products with someone when they have read something about you online. Especially with a product that does something which hasn’t been done before, social media gives you real-time feedback to help you explain the unique value of your product in a way that traditional advertising cannot.

Jennie’s article was not our first online recognition, however, we’ve also been named one of MassHighTech’s “5 Startups You Should Follow”, and Microsoft’s global BizSpark Startup of the Day. SocialGrow’s participation in Microsoft’s BizSpark Startup program, has further enabled us to connect and engage with our potential users online.

So how can a tech startup, and for that matter, ANY new company use social networks and online social media marketing “introduce” themselves to their target customers and help those customers to understand their brand’s unique value?

1. Hire a great CMO, who is both strategic and hands-on. You need someone who deeply understands not just marketing in general, but social media marketing in particular. SocialGrow’s CMO Ken Herron started engaging potential users online months before we launched our Alpha release, and has steadily worked his way up Kent Huffman’s Systemic Marketing’s "Top CMOs on Twitter” list.

2. Freely and generously share your expertise in your blog posts, Twitter streams, Facebook Fan pages, comments on others peoples’ blog posts, and MeetUp groups. Don’t forget to take advantage of any PR opportunities you see at Peter Shankman’s HARO.

3. Share your content so as to maximize its SEO and potential for virality, by being sure to include keywords which will help people to find what you’ve written. Required reading for all of us how to increase the effectiveness of our inbound marketing efforts are: HubSpot, David Meerman Scott, and Dan Zarrella.

4. Share “link love” with the people who you believe to be the best in your field (as I did in tip number 3 above), and they may share it back with you through their tweets and posts.

5. Continually create and share quality content. On Twitter, post at least 3 times a day, and on your blog, post at least once a week.

6. Actively participate in in-person networking events, proactively seeking out and introducing yourself to the other participants. At the last LaunchCamp Boston event, I made it a point to seek out Jeff Cutler, Joselin Mane, and Jason Evanish. Don’t be afraid to sit in the front row, as I did in Scott Kirsner and Wade Roush's session on PR.

7. Hire a great designer to visualize your brand’s identity. SocialGrow’s logo was designed to communicate the concept of healthy, positive growth, and we use it everywhere so people will instantly know when it’s us talking.

8. Finally, pay it forward. All new companies need help. If you can help a fellow startup with introductions, feedback, or simply being a good beta tester to help them to improve their product, then do it. You will not only make new friends, but learn things which will help your business along the way. Then when you need help yourself, and you will, you’ll have these people in your network. We all want to be successful!

Learn more about SocialGrow, and our milestones to date on our Crunchbase profile.

How have YOU used online social networking to increase your company’s brand awareness? I look forward to your comments!