I’m getting a little tired of the chorus of voices that suggest companies take a step back from integrating social media into their intranets because, after all, social media are just tools. We need, the authors of these opinions insist, to focus on strategy in our internal communications.

I am a huge proponent of strategic communication. The approach taken to any communication challenge should be designed to meet measurable objectives. Those objectives need to support a broad strategy. And you should devise the strategy to reach a business goal. I always chuckle when I hear that a social media consultant on his first visit to a client, without any research to support the assertion, blurts out, “Your CEO should be blogging!”

But the wholesale rejection of social media from the enterprise because, well, they’re just tools misses a bunch of points. Most employees use social media for knowledge and information exchange with one another. The fear that democratizing publishing will somehow produce an army of citizen journalists all reporting reactive news just hasn’t materialized in the companies that have adopted social media. Meanwhile, most communicators that have integrated social media into their formal communications have, believe it or not, embraced a strategic approach. The tools of social media just work better than older tools for some communications.

There’s more: IT professionals surveyed by Forrester Research have found that social media do add add value through such measures as improved productivity. Employees will use it whether it’s formally introduced or not because it’s better for collaboration than existing resources.

But what bugs me most is the idea that a tool has no power. Taken individually, each social media tool probably should be viewed as “just a tool.” Collectively, though—and in the context of the conditions that led to their adoption—social media are turning communication models on their heads. Companies ignore the fundamental changes to communication at their peril. Conversation has become more important than message delivery, for example. In an interview John C. Havens conducted with Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz for our book, “Tactical Transparency,” Schwartz said that building a community of customers turns the company’s products into community assets. “Somebody who feels part of a community is going to be a much more aggressive evangelist for our products than someone who just paid $29.95 for it at a big-box retailer,” he explained.

And, of course, Sun is using social media with evangelical fervor, along with more conventional community-building tools.

Internally, social media engages employees in conversation more easily than older tools, which is likely to make them much more aggressive evangelists for the company and its plans than someone who gets a company magazine, regardless of how proactive the reporting is.

Besides, and correct me if I’m wrong, isn’t the printing press “just a tool?” Yet if you could ask anyone from Martin Luther to Thomas Paine about the power of print, they would most likely suggest the printing press, while just a tool, also changed history.

Social media are having just that kind of impact. They are tools, but they are also much, much more. I hate to throw out a cliche, but restricting our view of social media at work to the realm of “just tools” is a classic case of missing the forrest for the trees.