Using Social Media and brand awareness in the same sentence is, in my humble opinion, a translation of “I don’t know how to use social media to connect with people, so I will just keep yelling at them with this new medium asking:
“HEY!! DO YOU WANT TO BUY MY STUFF?”
If your goal of any social media platform is to gain “brand awareness” and your strategy is to just put out updates on what the company is doing, you are making a huge mistake. Who wants to listen to that? (my guess is you probably ignore that type of false engagement as well…why would your customers like it?)
Listen, listen and did I mention…listen? Ask questions, embrace opinions, engage in dialog. Be a HUMAN.
I understand having people know your brand, but wouldn’t it be better if those that really know your brand be the ones to sell it to their friends? Brand awareness will happen through customer experience and those that will sell your brand are those with the best experience. So, focus on their experience & the awareness will be authentic and real – not shoved down our throat.
Caffeinated Marketing 
Love it.
I actually wrote an article on a similar topic on my own blog (in regards to using Twitter as a marketing channel). You can read it here if you’d like:
http://blog.georgegumpert.com/2009/06/22/why-the-marketing-folks-dont-get-twitter/
The web these days is doing a fine job of changing the marketing landscape. In a lot of ways, it’s making the job easier, in others it’s getting tougher. I think we may finally see the end of brand marketing (at least as we know it) within our lifetimes. It truly is an exciting time to be in the field.
Love your blog, btw. Keep it up!
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