The thing about Sona is you have to play like you would as a mid laner. Poke the enemy carry and heal when need-be. You don't need to be super aggro, just go up every time they go up to farm. It quickly adds up if you just stay patient and keep your carry alive. In a weird way, you want to draw the focus of the enemy team, so building slight tAnkP (tank with AP, a Locket/Frozen heart depending on enemy team with a dcap or mejai's so you can bring massive heals) would be in your favor.
Her damage is nice, but it's burst, so chances are you'll want to burst the carry or squishy support, at the very least chunking them with a E-W-Q-aa combo. I haven't had much luck with Powerchord W or E except in the rare situations where my team caught a straggler. However, Powerchord W does help your team deal with fed carries if you can manage to get it off on them.
As for ults, I don't really use it as an engage tool and more of a re-engage. If I start a fight with it, I have nothing left due to CDs and Q only working on 2 targets and W on one ally. The way I go about it with my ult is the same way I use Charm with Ahri, I will try to never lead with it because it's such a useful ability that is the biggest part of her kit outside of the ult. I miss it, I'm either dying or getting out of there/trying to kite because it's a 6-8s cooldown which is longer than one might think.
At least, that's how I play her and I'm probably the only one that rushes an Ardent censer on her now given it was buffed a bit ago and I just cannot ignore those nice stats.