Everyone is on Twitter, facebook, linkedin, tumblr, pintrist, googleplus, high-five, Friendster, myspace—and the list goes on. And most of us believe we need these social media tools to have a successful business. So, after you’ve branded your business, opened 500 social networking accounts, and friended as  many people as the internet would let you … what do you say to all those people?

Let’s look at it from the other side.

We all want to feel like we’re best friends with our favorite brands—that Justin Timberlake and The New Yorker like us as much as we like them—but that doesn’t mean we want to know when the intern who is running their facebook account wants a sandwich. If you’re a restaurant, it doesn’t make a ton of sense to be posting updates about your favorite sports team. Every brand is an authority, or striving to portray themselves as such, and what we—the fans–want to know is: how did they get so cool? What do they have that made us want to follow them in the first place?

So how do you share your authority and coolness with your fans? Go off on tangents. And by tangents, I mean, of course, topics that are tangentially related to your business. You have a shoe store specializing in athletic footwear? An interesting article about your favorite runner could make a great relevant post.

Remember, also, that people sign into facebook to see if the guy or girl they have a crush on has liked their new profile picture, and that noticing your post at all is a gift of their attention. Keep it brief, keep it relevant, and at least try to keep it interesting.

Do you have other suggestions for brands running social media accounts? Leave a comment below.