Hi Mike B

I'm beginning to see the potential value of social media for one of my projects.

I run a couple of function bands that have a steady flow of work, mostly weddings and other parties, but would like to increase our awareness and bookings with corporate clients. We have a strong, unique product and have picked up work in the last year playing for Cadbury, T-Mobile, Sega and PWC - and these bookings have come direct via our website (www.livekaraokeband.co.uk).

I just want to know how to best engage these potential clients either directly or indirectly via the events agencies.

There's FaceBook (too casual?), Myspace (too musical?), Twitter (too noisy?), LinkedIn (too serious?) and then I read yesterday that the mighty Google was abandoning Wave (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10877768) so it's difficult to know where to place my limited time to get the best results...

... so which one do I choose?

Thanks!

And where do they want to interact with you?

If you are talking mainly to large companies, maybe LinkedIn should be a consideration? Lot's of non-serious stuff going on there... Maybe create your own LinkedIn Group :)

There are also specific event industry forums (Event Crowd - http://eventnetwork.ning.com/) where you can engage with the events community.

I find people use a mix of on and offline resources to refine their purchasing choices if there's a reasonable sum being spent. So max your chances of staying in the front of buyers' minds by generating a good spread of on and offline activity. I'd have thought online video sites like YouTube & Vimeo are a particularly useful showcase for a band so that you don't waste time on supplying demo samples of music to people who are not inspired by your style/material.
Remember to add useful tags to all your online postings and include keywords in headlines to max your chances of popping up in online searches.
There's no one magic silver bullet - or if there is, the magic is in a combination of on and offline activities to build up a head of steam: aka buzz.
Simon's idea of engaging with events people is great and they also have specific magazines. Would have thought the mega events you've been in would be interesting case studies for them? Event trade press coverage would earn you extra cred with an "as seen in XX magazine" flash on your website, especially if the people who hired you are complementary. Worth looking to see if there are groups (forums) on LinkedIn for events managers in your area too.
Positive testimonials on the website are always re-assuring to would-be buyers.
Then add depth with social media as it often takes 7-9 encounters with you on the way to making a decision to select you. Some of these encounters may be recommendations from others on or offline, emails, Google searches etc.
People dot around different social media so learn to link them up, or use something like Ping.fm to manage each post subject, adapted to suit the different lengths required by the different types of social media: blogs, microblogs like Twitter, status updates and social bookmarking sites.
Finally, organise people to ensure you handle enquiries promptly and professionally - with good material to offer to cover FAQs. There's no point in spending time drumming up enquiries if you squander them by taking days to respond. People may be at the short-list point when they make an enquiry so you could be one of several they approach. If you are getting enquiries but failing to convert many into bookings, the easiest way to boost business is to improve your rate of converting enquiries into sales (by asking people who enquired but didn't buy and taking their comments on board). My old business coach reckoned converting 1 in 3 enquiries to sales was 'pants' and wouldn't stop pushing until we got a 1 in 2 hit rate.