Let's say you've determined that entering into social media is right for meeting your org's objectives. In my case it would be because we want to extend our web presence beyond the confines of our corporate website.

But let's say you trying to be realistic and you know that you are not properly resourced or organized to start a full blown social media factory. Even starting a blog can be daunting -- after all, while blogging may be easy, blogging well is not. (Take for instance the difference b/w this blog and those that really do cover similar territory well.)

So what's the entry point with the lowest barrier?

... And of course the koolaid-drinking chorus says: Twitter. I say, yes it's probably either that, or outbound commenting - listening and responding in various points around the web.

But. How easy is it really? These things take some planning. Like a 20-page Twitter strategy, or a bulletproof set of commenting and participation policies.

What I've found that developing these takes a lot more time than you'd think. I've been quite amazed at how challenging it's been for my team (even while liberally using the modern copy-paste-adjust method!). We're still far from nailing down exactly who does what, when and how often while representing the org online.

For example, we were working through the mechanics of how we would handle @replies on Twitter recently, and it's been quite surprising how much there is to cover. A partial list of what we're grappling with:

* how to handle official languages
* what microsyntax to use or avoid
* acceptable service standards and turnaround times
* triaging and handing off questions for response
* dealing with irrelevant or off-topic responses
* trolls and negative tweets vs legitimate complaints
* keeping it impartial
* privacy issues

And that's just one aspect of interaction on one particular social site. 

Anyhow -- What's your take? What are other low barrier entry points to social media for government? Are there any?