The other day my friend Barry called me. This is a very talented and smart guy in the events production business — he’s the guy you want to call to create fantastic corporate events — sales meetings, large trade shows, etc. He had questions about social media, because he still wasn’t getting how social computing tools might be important to him. To quote him as directly as possible: “Why do I want to Twitter? It just seems like a distraction.” Indeed, it can certainly be that. But, when put in the right context, even Barry understands how he can use social media and social computing tools (more on that after this upcoming related thought).

One of the biggest issues I have right now with all the PR and marketing folks who are talking about how to use social media for business and communications is that the advice and ideas are so general, it’s really difficult for your average business owner or corporate marketer to get a handle on how the advice applies to them. For example, this from last week’s NYTimes, or even this from Chris Brogan’s blog, which both discuss Twitter. These are very general strategies that may or may not be appropriate or helpful to the vast majority of people in business.

The key to remember about all things social media, particularly as they apply to marketing and PR, is this: they are tools. Not all tools are going to work for every company. Social media tools — communities, blogs, forums, update platforms like Twitter and Friendfeed — are also for selective use. If you get out of the “I must jump on board now with social media!” bandwagon, then you will give yourself the opportunity to explore HOW these tools could help you in business.

For Barry, I suggested he could find certain tools helpful for organizing around events, such as setting up a Friendfeed group around a particular conference to generate discussion for those attending or presenting. Or, setting up a short-term Twitter account to broadcast announcements to those who are attending, update room changes and speaker changes, etc during the conference as a better and quicker method of online updating than email.

Putting the tools in context helped him relate to these tools from the mindset of his business — not just from a business promotion perspective, but more importantly, how social computing could enhance the service he provides to his customers.