It sounds simple enough: Don't proceed without a plan.
But Jay Rosen of NYU joins the legion of observers who are watching newsrooms hitch themselves to social media without knowing exactly why they want to use it. The join-for-the-sake-of-joining club is pretty large, with a lot of Facebook groups, Tweets, Second Life occupants and Flickr galleries lingering with no real principle guiding the activity. In short, the hipsterism has nil effect.
Rosen's podcast on BusinessJournalism.org has some salient points: Figure out why you want to use it, use it properly, don't bother with it otherwise. Common sense lost on many.