Given the amount of buzz, hype and enthusiasm surrounding social media, a lot of companies are scrambling to climb on the bandwagon. They’re convinced that if they don’t move now, it will be too late. Much of its anxiousness is propelled by high-profile social media success stories such as Dell, Starbucks or Comcast. It has created a situation where many business want to embrace social media as soon as possible.

This is the wrong approach.

The reality is social media is still in its infancy. The success stories that attract attention from bloggers and the mainstream media are exceptions to the rule. They’re the “lottery winners” who have succeeded due to a combination of timing, luck and being in the right place at the right time. It also helps if you make a major investment in social media at a time when many competitors aren’t even in the game.

Given this situation, I’ve become a social media pragmatist. While it’s important and necessary for many companies to embrace social media as a way to expand and enhance their marketing, communications and sales efforts, there’s still plenty of time to develop the right approach that meets your strategic needs and objectives.

Over the past few months, I’ve been working with a growing number of clients interested in social media. Here are three questions that I ask:

1. Why do you want to do social media? Is it because social media is cool and new? Are competitors using it? Does it fit into how a company does business, particularly companies that are consumer-facing, and want to engage with customers in a new and different way? These questions establish a company’s motivations, and whether social media is really what they want to do and worth the investment required.

2. What kind of social media do you want to do? This means getting a good handle on a company’s customers, their Web savviness, and what kind of social media services they are using. If many of a company’s customers are into Facebook, then Facebook might be fertile territory to establish a social media presence.

3. Who’s going to do social media, and are you willing to make a long-term commitment? For many companies, this is the biggest hurdle because it means getting past the tools, and focusing on who within the organization is going to implement a social media tactical plan and, as important, sustain it on a day-in-day-out basis. Getting started with social media is relatively easy; grunting it out each day can be a challenge.

These questions might seem simplistic or straightforward but they’re fundamental in determining whether a company understands what’s involved with social media, and whether it’s really willing to do what it takes to make it happen. If a company can work through these three questions, then it’s a lot easier to move on to tactics.