Recently, I had the opportunity to address a room full of marketers from the insurance industry.  To say they were freaked out would be an understatement.  Interestingly, however, it wasn’t health care reform that had them out of sorts---it was social media.

To be fair to my insurance friends, regulated industries aren’t the only ones spooked by social media.  Just ask the folks at Nestle (preferably somewhere far, far away from a palm tree) or Southwest Airlines (preferably over a low-fat latte) or Toyota (‘nuff said).  Even some 2009’s shining social media stars are discovering that Facebook and Twitter make for fickle friends when wielded like bullhorns by disgruntled consumers.

So, what’s a marketer to do when the C-Suite begins voicing some doubts about “this social media thing”?  Well, we wondered the same thing at ExactTarget, so we asked 12 marketing thought leaders to pen letters about how companies could “get serious about social media” in 2010.  A few clear themes emerged:

• Social media is not a strategy, it’s a multifaceted channel. Jay Baer (@jaybaer) calls it a horse.  Personally, I think of it more as an elephant.  Whatever the zoological analogy, the consensus is clear—social media is a means to an end, not the end itself.

• Hiring a “social media manager” isn’t enough. As Olivier Blanchard (@thebrandbuilder) notes, “The complexity of building, deploying and driving a social media 'program' not only requires a breadth of skills on the management side, but also a division of labor across the organization."

• Social media is about commitments over campaigns. Joseph Jaffe (@jaffejuice) hammers this point home: To be a trusted, lasting brand, we must be in it for the long haul.  Those with “burn and churn” campaign mentalities are likely to find themselves short on fans, friends, and employers.