This afternoon, Mitch Joel of Twist Image touched on a subject many retailers shy from: social media. More specifically, he discussed why retailers need it and how to use it. In a nutshell? Retailers need to use social networking to build trust with customers.

When you, as a shopper, are seeking out a product, such as a new laptop or pair of running shoes, who do you turn to for advice? Maybe your favorite retailer or a review site. But whose advice are you most likely to take? Your friends’ advice.

Joel’s session, entitled “Social Media and the Reluctant Retailer,” showed the retailers in the audience that people are connecting to their friends online via a number of social networking sites: flickr, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, to name a few. People are using these sites to recommend products, to “friend” their favorite brands and to conduct research. The social shopper is, in fact, a social researcher.

What is the retailer’s role in this equation? Retailers need to ensure that customer trusts them. How do they do that? By using social communities to build that trust.

Some food for thought from Joel’s session:

- Give the customer a reason to connect to you. Provoke a reaction: laughter, surprise, excitement. You’ve got to keep it fresh to keep the customer from moving onto something else on the Web.

- Be authentic. If you want people to trust you, give them a reason.

- Find a wizard. A wizard is someone in your company with the expertise and personal interest to help you enter a particular social networking arena. Got a person on staff keeping a personal blog or with journalism experience? See if he or she is interested in blogging for the company. One of your marketing pros is almost always the wrong person to be your wizard.

- Start on the inside. Before trying to convince your CEO that you need $100k to invest in social networking, start an internal podcast or blog as a pilot project. Then you extend appropriately.

Joel touched on a number of other tips and topics through the session, and the overall message was crystal clear: Join the community. Use reviews, ratings, feedback, conversation and community to engage your customers. Think outside text — explore video, audio and images. Remember that when you are connected to your customers in a community, they are also connected to each other — and they are happy to help you spread your message.