You’ve heard about the power of the new social media – Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Flickr, blogging, podcasts – but you may be wondering how any of this would apply to your family business.

The answer is “In more ways than you can count.”

Social media have become the coffee shop of the Internet. They’re word-of-mouth advertising with far-reaching applications and a half-life of forever.

Social media’s ubiquitous nature and ability to spread like wildfire can make businesses hesitate to plunge in.

No worries. To reap the rewards of social media, you don’t have to boil the ocean, but you do need to get your feet wet. Before you wade in too deeply, though, there are a few rules you should know.

1. Find the tools to suit your goals. There are simply too many social media available to try to do them all. Just keeping up with a few social networking sites (online communities such as Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) can require several hours a week. Therefore, it’s important to know what your goals are and determine the best tools for meeting them.

If a goal is to increase loyalty among your existing customer base, you may want to start with a blog on your own site. A blog is a Web log, a type of online dialogue, with postings from your company and options to reply. It’s a great way to keep your site fresh and create a dialogue with your customers.

Another alternative to increase community on your site: Hold online contests, and invite viewers to enter. Post the results.

If a goal is to expand your customer base, you’ll want to learn more about what makes your prospective customers tick. Follow one or more social networking sites where they “live” online. Think of these as listening posts.

Post comments if you have something valuable to contribute, but avoid any blatant marketing. This is the equivalent of spamming, a big no-no in the social networking world. To bring more name recognition to your company, consider writing online articles about your industry for other sites. Do a search of industry terms to discover sites discussing your industry that may be hungry for content. Remember to avoid obvious sales pitches. However, useful information that includes a link back to your company’s Web site is appropriate.

2. Empower your employees to speak for you. You can’t be everywhere at once, so it makes sense to encourage employees to become ambassadors for your company by contributing to social media sites.

Chances are your employees are already doing social networking. Dropping a mention of your company name now and then should be seamless and easy.

Make sure they know the rules of the road, and remind them of the infinite lifespan of the Internet. A good rule of thumb is: If you wouldn’t put it in a picture frame on your desk at work, you probably shouldn’t post it on a social networking site.

3. Don’t be afraid of bad press. When you open up your company to the world through social media, you invite both fans and detractors. But even if a posting about your company is negative, it gives you the opportunity to respond and improve.

“If a company does something wrong and then fixes it,” says Ben Popken, editor in chief for The Consumerist, “it [fosters] more customer loyalty than if they didn’t do something wrong in the first place.”

4. Don’t expect overnight success. Social media campaigns take time. You may spend several weeks building awareness and growing viewership, another several weeks generating inbound links and several more before your campaign results in better search engine placements. The important thing is to be consistent and stay in the game.

5. Don’t drop your other balls. Social media can be a great tool in your marketing tool belt, but it can’t do it all. Just add social media to what you’ve always done to be successful.

So, prepare to plunge in. Chances are you’ll find the water is just fine.