When it comes to social networks and social media channels in general, a lot of social media champions are using words like “enagagement” and “influence” to describe best practices.  While these are certainly areas that a brand should aspire to become better at, I think businesses outside of the Fortune 100 need to start looking at the low hanging fruit: advertising.  A recent eMarketer report expects global spending on social networks to grow to $4.3 billion by 2011… and this is only on social networks.

With that level of investment for social network advertising alone, brands need to also start thinking about areas outside of Facebook and MySpace in which they can buy ad space.  Understanding where the bulk of conversation is coming from can help uncover new places to put up digital billboards.

For some clients, the thought of having to “engage” with customers on new channels outside of the comfort zone is scary.  It’s sometimes easier to focus on Facebook advertising and maybe some occassional Twitter engagement.  While this is an important first step, I think companies need to start marketing and advertising on mediums other than the usual suspects in order to have simple and easy access to their target audiences.   Finding the next tier of social media channels focused on your industry, products or services will be crucial to the next step in social media marketing.  And who knows, advertising on these channels may even provide better ROI!

You know that something is becoming huge when both the New York Times and the Economist are writing stories about a relatively new technology during the same week.  Include that with the huge sums of money and hype being dumped on Foursqare and other location based social networks, and you really have to wonder if this is the real deal.  And then of course, Facebook unveils “Places” on US mobile applications, and the pundits are talking as if this will be an unstoppable new marketing channel.  But then you tie that in with the Forrester Report which says that only 4% of Americans have tried a similar service and only 1% are using the service at least once a week, and you have to start wondering if it’s all just hype.

When I talk to clients these days, everyone who is new, cool and innovative wants to talk about creating Foursqare badges, and super engaging ways to get people excited about their companies.  It’s like the whole mantra of using social media to help enhance what you already do to drive business and revenue is thrown out of the window. 

This is the next wave, people will tell you.  This is when you think outside of the box.  Of course, ask around that corporate office, and the only people who are using location based social networks are the social media people.  Who’s in the box?

Money has been and will continue to be made on these networks.  This is why Facebook is getting in on the game.  There is a value in having this physical/virtual world tie-in for some businesses.  But this, out of all of the other social media channels, is not for every business.  In fact, it’s probably not for the masses either, and I think Facebook will soon find that out. 

Look into your business from a marketing, PR and sales perspective.  Can you really add to the experience that your customer has by adding a new level of engagement on mobile?  If it is, then by all means, get to work.  On the other hand, if you are a tanning salon, and you want to create a confusing game where people collect badges from Walmart, Target and Jamba Juice to win a free month of tanning, it’s time to walk away from the hype.

Recently, I have been talking to a number of start-ups about building a business from the ground up marketed through social channels.  There is no question that it is easier to make two-way communications a part of the lifeblood of your organization if you are starting from scratch.  It is probably one of the reasons that we are seeing larger organizations who are having such a hard time figuring out governance and structure when it comes to utilizing social.

If you are looking to build a company that embraces social, and you do not have a current client set, I think there are a few steps that you can take to make the process of “going viral” a realistic possibility.

1. Listen to what people in your target pool are saying – Most new companies have identified a pretty large set of individuals who can use their products or services.  Understand who is actually using social channels first, and then figure out what resonates with that target audience. 

If you are a service that provides access to ”green” products, find out the largest set of people who are engaged on social media discussing similar topic areas.  Let’s say that there a lot of people in many different demographics discussing “green”.  Great, that’s an opportunity for future growth.  But maybe mothers with young children take up over 60% of the conversation related to “green”.  Well, start there, and see what they are looking for.  When they talk about products, are the products for themselves or their children?  Let’s say that they are talking about personal products for themselves (services, personal care, etc.)

2. Develop relationships/partnerships with companies who provide these items – If you want to reach mothers who are looking for “green” personal products, you want to have products and partnerships with your service that resonate with this group.  Perhaps, you go after local businesses in your region that provide these products.  Build up a portfolio of as many companies in perhaps Ohio who provide green products.  Most businesses are happy to be included as part of new channels to get their product to market, so work on creating this first.

3. Engage with your target audience - Once you have set up adequate relationships to make it worth the while of mothers to start talking about your product and how you can provide local “green” personal products to mothers, get the word out.  Tell bloggers that your service provides access to over X different companies in the Ohio area who deliver the products that their audience is looking for.  If you are providing value, these individuals will help to spread awareness of your service.

I think a lot of new businesses are thinking about social in the back of their minds, but they are not thinking about how they can build their business to strategically utilize social and current discussions.  In this example, if you simply build partnerships with all “green” businesses without focus (personal hygiene, solar equipment, restaurants, etc.), you may just not resonate with any specific group.  And then it can be a long hard road to readjusting your vision, as you subsequently see where the interest is coming from.

Having  monitored social media across hundreds of different industries and businesses, I think there is a definitive trend with respect to post volume.  It’s actually pretty simple, and often when you’re in analysis paralysis, it’s also pretty easy to overlook.

Release as many press releases and content heavy stories as possible. 

Make them available to social media channels, try to keep the branding to a minimum, and develop interesting content that people want to share. 

Everyone wants to drive traffic back to the business, and there is no better way to do this than filling up a search engine with thousands of posts about your company.  Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a complicated business, but if you let other people tweet, blog and repost information about things you are doing, you will definitely get noticed by search engines.

And that’s really the main point.  Everytime some types in something about your industry, product line, etc., you want to make sure that your company shows up near the top of the list.  Search engines love social media because it’s current, and if you can make content that people share, then you can continue to stay near the top. 

As as example, if you are a lawyer who focuses on distressed real estate, then distribute as much content about the topic that you can.  It is amazing how just a little effort can help push your rankings to the top.

With the proliferation of spoofs on social media gurus and sites mocking the generalization that some social media professionals are offering to clients, I think there is a real need within the social media consulting community to actually figure out what can help clients today.  Too much advice is driven by hype, and a bit more rigor needs to be applied to the overall discussion around how to attack social media.  If you work in PR, marketing or sales, there is a sense that organizations need to do something to engage and monitor conversation happening around the brand.  But do we all need to start tweeting and figuring out our Foursquare strategy right away?  Probably not.  We may actually never need to look at those tools.  Never.

Lots of people have said it before, but the technology is secondary to the strategy.

Marketing - If you are a marketer, first look for the places where individuals are talking about your brand.  Don’t waste time trying to figure out how you are going to engage.  Too often organizations will spin their wheels thinking about engagement when they could just use forums as places to actually market their products and services.  So today, really understand who is talking about you, what they are saying, and where they are saying it.  Refine your message, and advertise based on what you learn.  Want to create an engaging social media widget?  Great.  That’s step two.

PR - If you work in public relations, you want to control the message around your brand.  First things first.  When someone says something that is blatantly false, help make corrections and provide simple transparent content that does that.  Whether it’s a paid monitoring tool or not that gives you insight to these conversations, focus on the negative.  As a PR professional, you want to keep the message clear.  Step two is creating a conversation with people who love you, people who are not sure how they feel… and driving more conversations that emphasis this message.  I think PR is a bit further along with social media, so being more proactive on listening and engaging is something that you can do.  But focus on the message, and address conversations that are off-message first.

Sales- Of all the functions that can suffer from analysis paralysis, there is no function that can fall into this trap more than the sales function.  Developing new business is usually high-touch and often a really difficult endeavour.  There are businesses who are making sales by looking on social media, but this can often be a long process.  If your Marketing and PR team focuses on advertising and message within social media, they have you generally covered.  After all, these groups, especially Marketing, are designed to drive sales.  So setup your monitoring tools to look specifically for individuals who are looking to buy now.  If you are up for the challenge, go ahead and engage those individuals.  Otherwise work in conjunction with Marketing and PR to be aware of the conversations that are occurring on social media.  While there are a few industries which may benefit from directly talking to individuals discussing an imminent purchase, this is an extremely difficult thing to do.  Wait for the tools (and the associated algorithms/processing) to get better, and then revisit using social media from the direct view of a sales function.

If you can attack these ideas first, there will be plenty of time to use other (much cooler) ways to get involved with social media.  Let’s get back to running a business!

When it comes to using social media in the world of non-profits, there are two things that immediately come to mind when asked what this new medium can help with: awareness and fundraising.  And then of course, people gravitate towards fundraising, because that’s a lot more exciting than awareness.  And you may think that it’s a great way to show ROI on social media.  Stories of people raising millions of dollars on a social media campaigns lure you into believing that it is easy.  But is it really?

The more we dig into the numbers, non-profits just are not raising as much as the hype claims.  In 2008, $300 billion was raised by non-profits, $15 billion of that money came from online sources, and in the last 3 years only $21 million came from Facebook (Giving USA and Blackbaud).  Many of the non-profits that we talk to who have already experimented in this area are coming to similar conclusions.  But that shouldn’t be a reason to abandon social media.

Non-profits need to start thinking about how social media can help them cultivate the relationship between themselves, their patrons and their patrons’ friends.  Be wary of circulating content that asks for money without a specific cause.  Instead spread awareness around what your organization is helping with functionally.  Talk about what you do, why you’re good at it, and what people should pay attention to.  Only after you have developed a deep relationship and created an interest around the conversation, should you start the conversation around fundraising.

I think the key message here is that social media builds relationships and awareness of what you as an organization do really well.  Focus on that part first, and the money will follow.

Recently, there have been a number of articles written about human psychology and social media; a decreased focus across our personal lives as we are subject to tweets, texts and one-off conversations that are high in volume and low on substance.  As we learn to understand how to wield the power of social media, we are all too often being consumed by analysis paralysis.  And in an effort to make some sense of all of the data floating around, we are starting to make decisions on what we want to cut out.

As organizations think about what channels they will engage across, there is a consensus that substance and content will trump all else.  As a recent study of active social media users by eMarketer  and Invoke Solutions points out, “blog posts were more likely to be trusted ‘completely’ than posts on Facebook, and trust dropped off sharply when it came to Twitter, even among friends”.  Which means that trust along more substantive channels and content will continue to rise as the volume of information increases. 

As organizations determine how they will build their social media presence, there should be an emphasis on creating and distributing content that has real value to the audience.  In real life terms, if you were going to say something in passing, make sure it directs that person to a place of value.  Otherwise, that individual (whether friend, acquaintance or someone you met on the street) will forget it within the next second. 

If as an organization, you can establish yourself as a trusted source for good content, then you’re on the right path.  And like all forms of trust, once you lose it, it can take a long time to get it back.  So take your time.  You don’t need to send out a tweet and Facebook update everyday.  Don’t worry about not being a social media super-user.  Trust me, your friends and fans have a lot of other things they are reading and responding to.  Create good content on your blogs and web properties, and distribute only the content that you think can provide value.  And that builds trust.

There’s a real danger today as functional groups within organizations begin to take on social media.  Who will take ownership of social media, and what purpose will this technology serve for the organization as a whole?  Will it be marketing… or for that matter, PR, product, sales, or R&D… that takes the reigns of tackling this?  The reality is that no single group should be aligning itself with social media alone.

Social media is the definition of a method of communication. That’s it.

It means that individuals can now have conversations with their friends, companies and governments in a way that they never could before.  Everyone can talk to everyone.

It’s open and public dialogue, and people talk about what they want to talk about.

If you read between the lines, I am saying that people don’t talk about things that do not interest them.  And there lies the danger of aligning traditional marketing goals with social media.  A lot of people are not listening to the conversations that are currently taking place, and then going straight for what they know whether it be the fundamental principles of marketing, PR, etc.

I think it’s easier to see with an example (this is not from a specific client, but a generalization from what we see).

CASE STUDY

Imagine you work in Marketing for a large credit card company. 

Here’s what you know - We market our credit cards to college students, and they are highly profitable.  Typically, they stay loyal to credit card brands over the course of time.  In addition, they hold balances, but eventually pay them off in order to maintain good credit.  College students generally will have increasing salaries over the course of time, and will thus spend more money with us.  Bottom line – College students should be pursued to become new customers of our credit card.

Here’s what you find listening to social media – College students really don’t talk about credit cards with their friends on social networks.  On the other hand, there are a lot of other groups talking about credit cards in reference to your company and your competitors.

Here’s what you think - If we use the right marketing, we can figure out a way to reach college students through social media, if we make the content and tone engaging.  They are a profitable group, so we should probably attack that demographic first.  In addition, they are one of the most active demographics in social media, so it might be easier to engage this group.

Here’s what can happen- It turns out that college students actually do not care enough about credit card companies, APRs and annual fees, especially when it comes to sharing with their friends and communities.  The social media assets that we setup to engage this group begin to accumulate dust, and eventually we think that the social media does not provide adequate ROI.

What we could have done

If we think of social media more as communication method, then maybe we could have started first by listening to who is actually communicating about credit cards.  Are these positive conversations or negative ones?  Maybe it’s newly married couples, entrepreneurs or people starting new jobs. 

Then we need to understand what they are saying.  Consolidating credit cards between couples, financing a new project or increasing credit limits…

And then we need to find ways to answer their questions, and engage with them.  This may involve monitoring, engaging or building social media assets.

But I think we all need to go through this exercise whether we are Marketing, PR or Sales professionals.  Who is talking about us, what are they saying, and can we make that experience better by engaging more closely based on what we do?

Social media is not marketing, but a communication tool that can make some parts of marketing more effective for our business as well as our customers.

Talking to clients over the last few weeks, I am convinced that the best social media strategies can only be driven by an initial in-depth listening activity.  This means using a social media monitoring tool like Radian 6 or SM2 and taking the time to understand where conversations are coming from.  Not just the domains or websites that are making the most impact but rather the overall tone, topics and trigger points for social media chatter.

Who is talking about you, and do the rest even care? – Most large corporations have a varied set of target demographics, and those demographics have different needs and desires.  With such hype around social media, companies today are quickly developing social media assets that look cool and take advantage of new technologies. 

One of the big problems with this approach is that not every demographic who is interested in cool stuff is interested in your company.  It’s heartbreaking I know, but the 15-25 demographic is probably not actively on social media to talk about insurance, healthcare or banking.  If you’re in one of these sectors, spending cash on developing assets in an area where people don’t really care to have active conversations may result in a channel that under-utilized.  And that can be a big waste of money.

Focus on the conversation not the tools  - Of course, this is something that every person in social media will tell you, but will you have the presence of mind to make sure that you are not misled by the allure of shiny new toys?  Really understand what topics people are talking about, and think about how you can make the experience better through social media.  If it’s not going to make the experience better, then don’t invest money in developing social media assets just yet.  Wait until there is significant traffic around what can have an impact on your business, and then make the leap.

There are far too many companies spending money on social media initiatives without actually taking the time to analyze the data that is floating out there.  Pay a little extra on the front-end for tools and strategy, and make sure that your actions around social media realize results that you can be proud of.

I was at the Smash Summit yesterday, and I had the opportunity to listen to a lot of great speakers about Social Media and where the ecosystem is headed.  There was some great insight across the board, but I realized that the one thing that I think I don’t write enough about is the value of really really good content.  It’s easy to get caught up in listening to the conversation and trying to figure out your share of voice, but if you’re looking to get something positive to go viral… it’s actually pretty straightforward.

Have good, interesting and engaging content on your site (hopefully that site is sitting close to the proper side of the sales funnel), and make sure you have as many ways as possible for your audience to share that content.  Not only should you have share widgets all over your content, but you should also have embed codes which can allow individuals to grab your content and put it on their sites, blogs, etc.  If you’ve branded your content properly, you are only increasing the reach of where your message sits.  So don’t be afraid to give it away.  As Stew Langille from Mint.com said, “It will come back to you, in the form of customers”.

We tend to forgot how important content creation can be, and some of the more successful campaigns can be those in which your customers help develop the content itself and then spread the word amongst their friends.  Whether it is a Crunch Gym Shorts Video or an Office Max Jib Jab Christmas Card, this is word of mouth marketing at it’s best.  Brad Jefferson of Animoto (a startup that automatically creates professional videos from uploaded pictures) gave some great examples of how the company will be using revenue sharing with corporate brands to help them spread messages.

Using a mix of these content creation tools and simply putting together engaging content, I think organizations have a real opportunity to be a part of the conversation in a way that actually resonates and drives new customers to make purchases.