Like all social organizations, companies are full of members (departments) that take great care in marking their territory and making sure everyone knows what is their (and sometimes more importantly, not their) responsibility.

• PR departments handle the PR agency
• Marketing departments handle the Ad Agency
• E-commerce departments handle SEO/SEM

A few years ago, it was (relatively) nice and peaceful in the jungle. Then, along came this disruptive thing called social media. Social media didn’t neatly fall into anyone’s preconceived buckets, and whats more, no one had any idea whose responsibility it was to figure out if these new tools could be used for marketing.

I know firsthand that some very large companies grabbed the youngest person in their marketing department and said, “Get us on Facebook.” Think that is a tenable position in the ever-increasing field of the social web?

Now that social media marketing has settled in a little bit, a lot of the stories are coming to the surface about how social media was (and in many case still is) handled within companies. I have seen two distinct approaches:

1. New thing = scary: This approach has been the more common among larger companies. No one wants to even figure out what social media is, much less be burdened with responsibility to figure out how to make it work for marketing. Responsibility gets tossed around like a hand grenade. A few people do one thing over here, then some other people do something else over there. There is no plan, cohesion or vision of any kind. Then the company whines about how social media marketing is a bunch of fluff because they tried it and it failed.
2. Ooooooo shiny….It’s mine: In some companies, the exact opposite is true. Every department fights over who gets to “claim” social media. Everyone wants to this powerful new tool to be theirs so they can take credit for it when it works. Since no department will hand it over, a few people do one thing over here, then some other people do something else over there. There is no plan, cohesion or vision of any kind. Then the company whines about how social media marketing is a bunch of fluff because they tried it and it failed.

Did you notice that the ends of both situations were EXACTLY the same?

The fact of the matter is this. Social Media Marketing is an increasingly important component of any marketing strategy, and, just like all your other marketing elements, it needs to have a vision and strategy behind it for it to work.

Someone in your company needs to be responsible, and more likely than not, you need to hire an agency to develop the strategy that’s right for you and execute on that strategy based on trackable goals.

Without that, how can you expect to succeed?

Currently available for the iPhone, the Geico GloveBox allows customers to access a multi-functional, extremely useful application. Equipped with a handful of tools, this product is single-handedly transforming smartphone apps for the entire insurance industry. Before going any further, allow me to share just why this application is built to succeed.

Once it’s loaded, individuals have access to a wealth of useful and handy tools. First, is an accident helper that allows someone to quickly contact emergency services. It also gives you a place to organize photos from an accident, to help you prove that it was the other guy’s fault.

Next, it has a “Roadside Service” tool that allows you to find gas stations and tow services if you are ever misfortunate enough to need either one. There’s also a taxi/rental car function that utilizes the phone’s GPS, to help you find other ways to get home. Lastly, the application is equipped with do-it-yourself and how-to videos, covering everything from jump starting a car, to changing a flat tire.

Aside from these excellent services, what makes this app so groundbreaking is just how much stock Geico has invested in a product that doesn’t actively recruit new customers. While there are portions of this app that are dedicated to Geico customers – such as retrieving your insurance ID – no elements of this app are superfluous. Each service has a dedicated need, with a few videos along the way of the Geico Gecko to provide comic relief.

Furthermore, the GloveBox proves that Geico has resisted the current fad to bring something – regardless of usability – to the smartphone market.  You can also tell that this app wasn’t thought up in a back room by devious marketing executives attempting to use all of their allotted spend. Instead, this is a well planned, well thought out application, with the sole purpose of creating a positive brand experience.

It may be tough for Geico to measure the influence of this app on gross sales, but thus is the Catch-22 of social media.  However, if you look at this app through a different lens, it transforms traditional marketing. While you may not remember a whole lot about the next fender bender you’re in, you will remember using the GloveBox app, and the fact that Geico was there to help.

The branch has embraced social media with open arms by maintaining accounts on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and iTunes (featuring news in the form of podcasts and video podcasts). As of 1/15/10, the NAVY listed over 200 official social media sites . Additionally the NAVY sponsors their own social network for Moms on Ning. This allows those serving to connect and stay up-to-date, utilizing any of the available social media platforms. The NAVY’s CIO acknowledged that social media can be used to “build trust and collaboration, both within and outside the organization.”. On Twitter, there are several Navy-related accounts including: @NavyNews, @flynavy, and @PacificFleet (a comprehensive list is available on GovTwit, the Government Twitter directory). The NAVY Twitter accounts serve as a great source for military information (and a sense of everyday life), especially since, unlike the official traditional military media outlets, tweets are informal and written in “civilian-speak.” The NAVY is fully-aware of who its audience is, and tweets accordingly.

The NAVY has reached a niche market by providing parents (and relatives) the opportunity to unite with others in similar situations and get support through the social networking site NavyForMoms (NFM). As seen in other markets, the “mommy bloggers” are an influential group and the military branch tapped into an older version of this consumer. These moms don’t have infants – they have full-grown children. The NAVY specifically targeted mothers due to the impact of their opinion on those interested in joining the branch. They realized that if they could reassure Mom,  it could result in higher recruitment rates. The NAVY created a marketing campaign focused entirely on this target market and launched the NFM website as a social media test in March 2008.  There are currently 27,481 enthusiastic NAVY family members (predominately mothers) who are very proud and supportive of their sailors, and are advocates of the NAVY.  The NFM site concisely states their goals:

“NAVYForMoms.com was created for the mothers (and loved ones) of those who are currently serving or considering serving in the U.S. Navy. The site gives members a place to discuss issues with others who share common concerns. Here, content is member-driven. Questions are asked and answered. Moms share with fellow moms their fears, dreams and personal experiences. The ultimate goal is to provide an environment of understanding, comfort and belonging to all involved.”

Discussions include how to best handle emotions when a sailor leaves home for the first time, advice on attending a sailor’s PIR (’Pass in Review’ aka boot camp graduation), and brainstorming ways to support those who serve when they are away from home, including “Adopting-A-Sailor” during the holidays. Members share and respond to each other through personal blog postings, forums, photos, videos and local events. They customize their experience by writing posts and comments, configuring the look and feel of their avatar and profile and by choosing groups to be involved with. I am a member of NFM, and I belong to the “Proud NAVY siblings” group. It was through this network that I learned about the NAVY tradition called “blue candle lightings,” which is done when a sailor can’t make it home for the holidays – a candle is lit in their honor. I was upset that my brother couldn’t make it home that year, but I felt a sense of connection when I set-up his blue light, knowing that I wasn’t the only family member in the U.S. going through those emotions on Christmas Day. I was one of thousands that day, and since my family doesn’t live close a naval base, I don’t have a chance to physically interact with other military families. Social media has allowed for people similar to me to connect on a virtual naval base, when support is otherwise unavailable.

The NAVY integrated NFM into their overall PR and marketing communications strategy for the branch. OOH environmental ads were created through “Blue lightings” of historic landmarks (a nod to blue candle lightings) and by completely transforming the look of subway stations and sporting venues. Print ads and 30-second spots promoted the site by introducing actual active members, including Karen Gallagher, a proud NAVY mom (Yes, she is a real person who lives in NH, and her sons are NUKES, just like my brother. She is a rather nice lady.). The efforts did not go unrecognized by the community as NavyForMoms campaign won Silver in the AMA’s 2009 Effie Awards in the Government, Institutional and Recruitment category.

We've come quite a long way, haven't we?

The U.S. NAVY has made it a priority to utilize social media. By doing so, they have created a virtual version of the tight-knit military community that has previously only existed for our sailors and their familes on physical bases and naval yards. In other words, NFMs is a great example of how to utilize the power of social media.

1. Put dude in fancy new space suit
2. Put dude in a little box
3. Hook box to a super-cool weather balloon and let go
4. Watch as balloon floats towards space
5. Once the balloon is 23 miles above the earth, dude opens box and JUMPS OUT!
6. Dude falls back towards earth and (hopefully) becomes the first person to break the sound barrier with his body
7. (this is the important one) Dude survives

That is the RedBull Stratos project in a nutshell. Visit the website for more details, or even better, check out the trailer they made for it:

So why am I talking about this? Because I think this is absolutely fantastic marketing.

According to the Stratos website, this project is already three years in the making and couldn’t have been cheap. Instead of spending that money on TV commercials I would just fast-forward right through, RedBull decided to put their money behind a project that has massive coolness points (read: increased viral potential) AND genuine implications for furthering our knowledge of aeronautics, medicine, and engineering.

RedBull is thinking about marketing in a new way. They’re not trying to convince me that RedBull gives me more energy than Monster, they’re relying on a specific type of branding exercise: coolness by association.

Of course, this isn’t new. Companies have been slapping their logos on everything from people, to teams, to race cars for years in an attempt to capture coolness by association. But like all forms of traditional advertising, this dogmatic practice of putting your logo on everything has progressively less of an effect on an ad-saturated culture.

RedBull understands this. You don’t see a RedBull logo on a golfers hat. You don’t see a RedBull commercial with Eli Manning. Instead, RedBull gives you things like Flugtag, the RedBull Air Race, and now, Stratos.

The minds at RedBull display a keen (perhaps the keenest out there) understanding that in order for “coolness by association” to work, you have to realize that the bar for what is cool is much higher in our modern times.

As a marketing initiative, I think it’s working. I’ve told everyone I know about it. I sent the trailer around my whole office. And, if I site back and truly ask myself if I feel more positive about RedBull now that I know they are behind this project that is not just cool, but scientifically valuable, the honest answer is yes.

The Basics

Social media is the result of taking what we naturally do as humans – mainly communicating and developing relationships – and combining it with technology and user-generated content. Unlike traditional media, which is one-way, social media allows for a two-way conversation between friends, family, and even companies. This provides companies with the opportunity to really listen to their customers (both existing and potential), gain insights and feedback, and hopefully put the acquired information to good use.

When social media is used correctly and in the right context, it can create community, develop enthusiasts and awareness in a way much faster and more organic than traditional media. It is a valuable addition to a company’s overall marketing mix and strategy. Marketing is changing rapidly and with the influence of social media there is discussion of defining a new version of the 4Ps. How is your company involved in the conversation? How does this new context challenge your current company dogma?

(Some of the) Goals of Social Media

-Create community through two-way communication.

On their own, users can create their own communities based on a particular interest or tribe. Some of these are corporate-free and others are open to companies participating. No matter what, a conversation will occur, with or without you. Your previous views held that all messaging about your brand needed to be controlled rigidly and in line with corporate mandates. Now, the majority of the public’s experience of your brand is out of your direct control. They are talking about you, to each other, publically, and with tools that allow their voice to extend globally and through time. Understanding the magnitude and implications of this new situation is the entire basis for mastering social media marketing. By reaching out to your customers you create a dialogue that can gain trust and can create brand advocates, as well as start the brand messaging in the correct direction.

As mentioned earlier, social media is a form of two-way communication, where users can have a dialogue with other users as well as with companies. Companies need to actually listen and participate, and not just broadcast! This is always given lip service, but rarely put into play correctly. Here’s a test for companies that think they “get it”. Ask yourself “what have I done to make listening and understanding my fans/friends/followers a priority?”. If the answer is “nothing” or something weak, you do not “get it” and need to evolve.

If you’ve already applied a listening strategy, your campaign has the potential to create essentially a global focus group for your company. It is possible to gain instant feedback on products, ideas, ads, and campaigns from the general public or from your most targeted, niche demographic. Use this feedback. Understand where the data is coming from and how much information can be gleaned. After receiving a State of the Brand Report, our clients are frequently dumbfounded that the “facts” they previously “knew” about their company are actually falsehoods and that the current reality requires a different approach.

-Create and provide the opportunity for content that can be shared, responded to and evaluated.

Content posted online can be passed along to friends, commented on and rated on review sites, reworked, mashed-up, or even crowd-sourced. If there is buzz about a topic, it can spread very quickly through viral methods. If content is interesting, unique or even weird, users will want to pass it on.

-Be personalized/customized.

Gen Y (aka Millennials) is the generation who brought customization to the foreground of marketing. Facebook, Twitter and even LinkedIn have ways to personalize accounts, through avatars, applications, images, and content. Unlike traditional forms that are one size fits all, social media allows and embraces variety.

Considerations Companies Must Address

• Is your original content adding value? Is it something users find relevant? In a two-way world, consumers have more control over when and where they see something. Are they going to take time out of their day to see your content? Do they care?

• Are you genuine, authentic and transparent? Social media is much more than press releases posted on a blog, Facebook or Twitter. It involves real people, with real thoughts and interactions. It goes beyond the speaking the company line. Content can still be true to the brand – just don’t be robotic about it. How is this conversation unique to the form of media you are using? As for being authentic, users can see through facades. Your company is evaluated based on if you are true to what you say and do. Be aware that criticism will happen since social media is democratic in nature. Don’t censor it – address it. By participating in social media, a company can’t go off in a corner, stick their fingers in their ears and go “Lalalalala I’m not listening” when someone else says something negative.

• Are you, and will you, continue to be engaging? Possibly one of the biggest challenges is to keep the conversation going. After connecting with a vibrant, excited audience, you can’t just forget about them. It’s like a guy really interested in you for a few dates, then never calls you back. Social media is one way to maintain a relationship with customers and address any problems that may arise in a more timely fashion. So if you are going to start a relationship, you better commit.

Social media is new territory that cannot be approached in the same manner in which companies are used to with traditional media (No, you can’t have 100% control of your messaging. No, you shouldn’t remove comments from detractors. Yes, you should respect and actively engage with both fans and detractors alike to give your message the best chance of succeeding). It is far more interactive and provides less control over the conversation, but one of the greatest benefits is creating and reaching out to brand enthusiasts who will voluntarily become word-of-mouth ambassadors for your company. So what are you waiting for? – join the conversation.

Where are you Jumping?

Thanks to social media, we are now able to connect to the world in ways we never thought possible. Whether you are writing on your friend’s wall on Facebook, texting or tweeting, there is always a way to communicate and most of us don’t think twice before doing so. However, did you ever consider that you may not be communicating with the right person or that what you are tweeting may be used against you at work next week? Unless you have experienced the dangers of social media firsthand, these thoughts have probably never crossed your mind.

The Dangers Of The Public Domain:

Are photos ever put up of you on Facebook that represent you in a way that may get you fired from your job or in trouble at school? Did you ever update your twitter status and write something that was not necessarily PG-13? You may not think twice before posing for a picture or updating your status, but this could backfire. When something is posted online, it is permanent and open to the public eye. Even on certain applications, your privacy settings may limit who can see your profile, but your friends profile may not be limited and what if they display a negative photo of you? There isn’t much you can do about that. Larry Johnson of the Kansas City Chiefs recently experienced the dangers of the public domain firsthand when he decided to use twitter to tweet some comments that were not necessarily “politically correct”. Once his tweets were out there, they drew more attention than Johnson had intended , which has resulted in his release from the team. In today’s world we need to be extra careful when doing something that could land us as victim of the dangers of social media.

Chiefly a Twitter Problem

Identity theft:

Social media platforms have made many of us more vulnerable to identify theft. By providing too much information on sites such as Facebook and My Space, many of us are making it simple for criminals to create false identities and access our bank accounts. Have you ever received a message on Facebook asking you to verify your Bank of America account number and password? I have certainly received messages similar to this. Although I do not fall for these counterfeit messages, a user new to the world of social media may not think twice before giving out their information. With the increase in identity theft now a days, users of any type of social media networking sites need to be extra cautious with what information they provide to the public.

Who are you really connecting with?

Are you sure Twitter user Soccer452 is really your best friend Suzie? What if it is somebody pretending to be Suzie? Celebrities have so many users trying to impersonate them on twitter that they are now given verified accounts to help the twitter community decipher the authentic accounts from the phony ones. What about on Facebook? I don’t think twice before accepting a Facebook user who has requested to be my friend. However, there have been incidents where Facebook users have been impersonated. Take for example, the tale of Facebook user Bryan Rutberg. In January ’09, an unknown user got in his account and updated Bryan’s status to say “Bryan NEEDS HELP URGENTLY!!!” The unknown user then sent one of Rutberg’s Facebook friends a direct message saying that Rutberg was robbed at gunpoint in London and needed money in order to return to the United States. Rutberg’s friend wired him over one thousand dollars thinking he was helping him out. Meanwhile, Rutberg was safe at home during this whole incident and the money was never to be seen again. Impersonating people on social media platforms is becoming more and more common these days. Although the warning signs may not be clear, we need to always be on our toes when trying to connect with our friends.

Social media has changed most of our lives for the better. It helps us maintain relationships with family and friends, promote our brands and products, and communicate more clearly across borders. However, we need to make sure to be very careful when using any form of social media and watch out for the danger signs. For brands, the ramifications are multiplied. With more people and resources on the line, it’s crucially important that brands know what they are doing when enacting a social strategy. With the typical faceless brand, people often lose sight that a brand is really just one face for an entire community of people and treat brands even less respectfully online. Vigilance and foresight are the only winning strategies.

The two biggest pieces of advice that can be given to any user of social media to protect yourself, whether you’re an individual or a representative of a brand, are the following: Make sure to be careful of what information you put out there else it may come back to haunt you later, and do your diligence when connecting with others. Getting your safety squared away first allows you the freedom to reap the multitude of benefits of the social sphere.

In the last few years, the physical and virtual worlds have been coming together in new and interesting ways. Virtual information can be overlaid on top of physical, real-time information, creating a mixed reality. “Augmented reality” (AR) is the broad term used to describe this blending. Some older examples are simpler in nature. For example, AR has been used in sports broadcasting, such as the comet-like tail of a hockey puck for NHL games, or the yellow first down line in football games.

AR in smart phones has the ability to utilize features that already exist on the phones including a camera, built-in GPS, solid-state compass, accelerometer (measures acceleration/shaking), and decent computing power. The technology of the phone can be used with downloaded apps to find the nearest public transit stop (London and NYC, among other major cities have apps that accomplish this), see restaurants near you (with reviews from Yelp!), or even find a pint of your favorite beer.

Your Favorite Beer?.

AR has also been used with specific marketing purposes in mind. For their December 2009 issue, Esquire, used AR in an attempt to extend the shelf-life of a monthly magazine and provide added value. The magazine is used with a web cam and software that is downloaded from the magazine’s website. Throughout the issue there are different black and white square icon-like images. Each image uses an algorithm to trick the web cam into seeing (and projecting back) something other that what is actually on the magazine page. Consumers need to hold the magazine up to the camera for the experience to work. The square icons trigger different interactive scenes that are displayed on the computer monitor (which relates to the actual content on the magazine page). Some of the interactions change based on the direction in which the magazine is held, or even on the time of day, which also drives repeat visits. For more information, go to: http://www.esquire.com/the-side/augmented-reality

Pool-tron

A good (non-phone) example of augmented reality (and a possible source for up-and-coming pool sharks) was developed by the RCVLab at Queen’s University and can be found on YouTube (if you don’t want to wait, skip ahead to 2:14). Cameras are used to interpret the physical space and show the line up of possible shots (by using basic geometry), as well as the trajectory of the balls once they’ve been hit. By mixing the physical space with the information of the computer, a real-time augmented reality training tool is created.

In the future, augmented reality can provide marketers a new way to differentiate themselves from their competitors, and also find a way to better integrate the virtual and real worlds. How is your company planning to use this tool as a draw to spark conversation, attract consumers, and win business?

In this photo: an astrobeast

It seems like every month or two a high-profile brand or agency gets caught using some questionable black-hat tactics. Over the summer, Reverb was nailed trying to manipulate the App Store by posting positive reviews with fake accounts. The agency admitted no wrongdoing and went to great lengths to justify their practice as completely innocent. More recently, Sports Illustrated was discovered openly soliciting Digg users in an attempt to force mediocre content to the front page. When word got out, the press—particularly the social media press—were sure to make a moral example of these two naughty companies.

Let’s not be naïve here: Black hat marketing goes on all the time, in every channel that will permit it (think back to what e-mail was like prior to all of the CAN-SPAM regulations before you start thinking that this only affects SEO and social media). The people who get caught are a small fraction of the people who actively do it. And while it would be easy for me to take the cuddly-indignant social media line on black-hat practices and denounce them as crimes against our common humanity, the reality is that you can boil the issue down to 2 points:

• You shouldn’t use black hat techniques because people love exposing it like they love celebrity gossip.
• There’s no reason to do it when you can achieve the same goals just as easily (and sometimes more easily) with honest, transparent techniques anyway.

Let’s look at the Sports Illustrated case: Their social media guy contacts a Digg user who has posted sports content before and asks him to submit SI content in exchange for SI merchandise. Aside from the amusingly corporate tone and the offer of merchandise (which is a pretty weak exchange for what’s essentially access to a Digg power user’s influence and network), what you’ve got here is a simple request for help—the same sort of request that thousands of marketers and PR people send to thousands of industry experts and influencers every day. Take out the memorabilia bribe, and it’s one pitch among a million.

At Pandemic Labs, we’ve known influential members of the Digg community for quite a while now. We certainly understand the marketing value of a front-page story on Digg, of course, and, when they’ve had something worthwhile, we’ve helped some of our clients get some attention on various social news sites by connecting these users with our clients. Our contacts won’t push bad content; they’re rightfully concerned with maintaining their reputations, as was the user Sports Illustrated contacted. Even if they will, we stand to gain nothing from trying to force-feed an online community bad content. It hurts reputations, lowers the quality of information, and drives away users (who are by and large clever enough to identify content that’s been forced through).

To “game” Digg, as Mashable so pejoratively put it, but to do it honestly and transparently, is very simple:

1. Create quality content
2. Connect with a Digg users who likes the kind of content you create
3. Make (actual) friends, as a responsible social media marketer should do
4. Most importantly, don’t do steps 2-3 if you haven’t done step 1

We’ve turned down more requests from clients to help them promote their content on social news sites than we can count, and it’s because we know that when you do what Sports Illustrated did, everyone loses.

Watch your step

Where Sports Illustrated’s failure was simply to misunderstand how social news sites work, Reverb’s astroturfing represents a much more dishonest and calculated game. If we put the ethics aside for a moment, the problem with astroturfing is that to have the influence you want, you need to maintain a huge number of users, complete with believable histories, philosophies, political views, and opinions about a wide variety of subjects. I know it sounds obvious, but go try it and see how quickly you fail and end up falling into the patterns that make your users stand out as fakes: Copy-pasted posts, incomplete profiles, and boring user names.

One of our client’s competitors (no, we won’t be naming any names) has been astroturfing on forums for months. They’re nice enough not refrain from disparaging our client directly, always preferring to say that while our client was great, our client’s competitor was just a little bit better, or more friendly, or a better value.

We discovered the ploy during one of the regular brand audits that we conduct for this client. These audits compile data on online conversation about our client and our client’s competitors. We quickly noticed that there were a significant number of similar forum posts about our client’s competitor, and after 5 minutes of reading we realized that the competitor had simply written a few stock forum posts and then tasked some unfortunate intern with the job of making user accounts and posting the stock language everywhere he or she could.

There’s nothing inherently dishonest with getting on the forum circuit (whether it’s really the most efficient way to spend your marketing dollars is another matter entirely). But as with Digg, you need to have the content. A forum user won’t care who you are if you’ve got something they like.

It’s unfortunate that the astroturfers out there who try to make up for bad content with grunt work have made it much harder for conscientious, content-driven marketers to try to give people what they want. Any misjudgment on a social news site or a forum can severely compromise the reputation of a company or its agency, and every time one of us gets caught it makes us more like the annoying traditional marketers we claim to be different from. But we’ve got not right to complain: as an industry, we brought it on ourselves.

This bird hates Twammers

Improper Following on Twitter

You’ve seem them on Twitter. Their messages that they’re “now following you” clog up your inbox. In fact, the only safeguard is not having a twitter account at all.

Who am I talking about? Twammers.

Twammers, or twitter spammers, can be classified as having a succinct, direct marketing strategy. Not known for their subtleties, or their beat-around-the-bush tactics, these twammers actually achieve a pretty high success rate – that is, the rate they successfully turn you away from their product.

Joking aside, are companies marketing themselves in this fashion because they believe it works, or out of just plain laziness? While I wish it was the latter, a strong part of me believes it is the former. And while there will always be these types of marketing campaigns regardless of the medium, what twitter specific aspect makes companies adopt this wildly inefficient strategy? In short, follower count.

Follower counts are sexy, cool, and they announce your popularity to the world. In fact, many celebrities are ranked by their follower count, so one can’t help but rank themselves according to their friends and competitors. But, let’s face the facts here: you’re not a celebrity! And except for some stroke of a magic wand where your father is suddenly transformed into OJ Simpson’s lawyer, or a multi-billion dollar hotelier, you’ll never be someone who commands a follower count into the millions. Suffice to say, stop trying!

Now, it’s quite easy to play the “follower game” on twitter. In fact, you can simply turn on an autofollow feature, and the entire process will be out of your hands. But in the case of twitter, it’s not how many followers you have, it’s how many key followers you have. These key followers are those that understand your product, your message, and most importantly, they appreciate you. They are the ones most likely to search for your latest tweet, rather than simply reading it when it appears on their feed. Key followers are those that are most likely to retweet you, mention you in one of their own tweets, spread your word, or actually buy your product. These folks may even start corresponding with you on twitter, and as long as the name of the game remains “word of mouth,” what better publicity can you find?

Don't give in to this guy

So how exactly can you create an effective twitter strategy without becoming a twammer? First, build your account slowly and organically, by only following those that are in your target demographic. Your goal is not to attract as many followers as you can, it’s to attract as many influencers as possible. These influencers, along with others that have pledged brand allegiance, make up your “key followers,” who will mention your service to others. Attracting them is, well, key, since social media is not always a means to a sale, but a means to interact and create positive brand experience. If you give in to the dark side – and become a twammer – then all of your future plans might be for naught.

Granted, it might be tough to explain the meaning of a key follower to your follower-hungry clients or bosses. However, they must be reminded that a successful twitter campaign is not too dissimilar from any other great marketing strategy: isolating your niche, and becoming the big fish in a small pond. Once they understand that, they’re not too far from realizing how valuable 140 characters can be.

Running parallel to the coverage of social media has been analysis of the precipitous fall of the economy. Given the overlapping timing of these two sea-changing stories, I can’t help but think about the connection between them. Obviously both the global economic crisis and the ubiquity of social tools are complex phenomena with causes and effects too large to number on these pages, but at the same time, it’s clear that the faltering economy played no small part in the explosion of social media services.

In other words, social media probably wouldn’t have grown so quickly if marketers hadn’t been forced to trim their bloated advertising budgets. Without free or low-cost ways to reach customers and prospects, how else could they stay relevant in the face of slashed budgets?

As people who already use social media in our daily lives, this is old news. We know how these applications and platforms have helped to shape online communities, build brand awareness and cultivate sales. For those who don’t spend their free time reading tech blogs and plotting a way to attend SXSW, however, social media is suddenly showing up everywhere.

I wonder if social media has gotten increasing media play because in some ways, it is an antidote to the dread-inducing stories on the economy that have dominated the news for months. After all, each day we read how the global financial catastrophe grew out of a cascade of decisions that allowed for individual gain at the expense of the common good. That’s not exactly heartwarming news. Wouldn’t we rather hear about how Christopher Walken is using Twitter? (update: He’s not)

Social media, on the other hand, is predicated on the sharing of information between individuals and groups. People who evangelize social media tend to highlight how it fosters transparency, a refreshing contrast to the back-door dealings of large financial institutions on Wall Street.

What will happen to social media once the economy picks up steam? My hunch is that businesses will find new ways to monetize their social media tools and we will see even further competition among services. Social media isn’t going anywhere. In fact, just last week, Mashable posed the question, “Is social media an industry?” It seems like just yesterday we were trying to convince our colleagues that blogging was worth the investment of time and now we’re discussing how it contributes to our capitalist economy. Without a doubt, social media has taken a positive turn in ways that nobody predicted. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that our economy does the same.

What are your predictions for Social Media?