Ben Parr of Mashable stressed the need to engage in the social web if you hope to succeed as a small or large brand at this weekend’s BizTechDay in San Francisco. Key takeaways include:

1. Go to where your customers are….and more and more people are hanging out in social networks….on the social web.

2. Don’t let someone else tell your story. The key thing to social is that YOU can tell your story directly.

3. Great ideas solve two problems: a problem that affects people – “if you think that you can just build it and they will come, it’s BULL,” Ben says. The second problem you can solve is distribution and social media is a distribution channel, an ultimate one.

4. Lastly, he says, “if you think of social media as tools, then you are a tool. Social media is about people. Social media is about communication. Social media is about engagement.”

Bottom line, in order to build a remarkable brand, you have to build a channel first and engage that channel in interesting ways and often. A video clip of the last part of his talk below.