At this point in its evolution, enough businesses have found effective ways to use Twitter as an effective communications tool to successfully squash those who still doubt its impact. Yes, it can actually be used for something other than posting stupid pictures of your cat or tell your friends what you just ate for lunch.

While Twitter’s ranking on the “shiny new toy” scale has waned recently, you should never worry that there isn’t always something new waiting in the wings to hold the attention of social media geeks around the world few more minutes.

Enter: The Shorty Awards - for the best producers of short (140 characters or less on Twitter) content in 2008.

While it has evolved and proven itself, Twitter is still a pretty immature technology. If Twitter is like high school, consider the Shorty Awards a loosely organized popularity contest, complete with class clowns attempting to stuff the ballot box.

The Shorty Awards are completely driven users tweeting their votes and nominations for their favorite users in a number of different categories (best brand, advertising, business education, etc) helping to organically spread the word about the contest and spur even more voting.

But the truth is that most viral content on the web is complete fluff – eye catching, but lacking in any sort of real value, and that is where the Shorty Awards come in. As long as you have your expectations in order, you won’t miss a thing. Just try replacing The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal by getting all your real news from Digg.com and you’ll see exactly what I mean. And no, I’m not calling the latest apple product news or tech toy “real news.”

After a quick look at the list of Shorty Award nominees and those that weren’t named (but clearly should have been) it is clear that this is really just a group of Twitter users who have become the best at pimping themselves out to their followers with no clear understanding why they were doing it in the first place. The contest may be one of the worst ways of actually measuring public opinion, but may do a pretty decent job at measuring someone’s ability to blindly market themselves for an award that they themselves don’t completely understand the value of.

Even Melanie Notkin, a finalist in the Shorty Awards “Brand” category for Savvy Aunty, points out that a far more influential twitter user on behalf of their brand, Zappos CEO Tony Shieh, wasn’t even a finalist and decided to gracefully bow out of competition.

Everyone wanted to win, but no one is quite sure why. There is no big prize at the end. No BusinessWeek cover story. You just know that someone else wants it, and on that premise alone, so do you. Thankfully not everyone was so heavily struck with a case of shiny new toy syndrome and were actually able to call the Shorty Awards by what they actually are.
@mvolpe: “I think the shorty awards are total crap. Just saying.”

The ultimate winner in the brand category @MarthaVan, who tweets on behalf of Action Wipes, noted that for her “The challenge for a small business such as mine is always getting national publicity. I entered the contest in hopes that the national news would pick up on the awards and thus bring awareness to all the winners.”

For Martha, the time investment in promoting herself and outreaching to her followers for votes was well worth the gamble that winning would actually provide some real business value and lead to additional sales or national visibility for her company. So far, that time hasn’t come.

So much of what is emerging in social media is new and needs to be experimented with, tested and measured to fully understand its ultimate value, so I’m not blaming the Shorty Awards for any of their missteps along the way. I actually give them credit for playing around in this new area, but the true danger comes in when people begin mistaking what they are actually measuring and replace a fun experiment with a new are of technology for something with legitimate value.

Whenever I hear someone talking about the use of social media or about how social media campaigns are going to replace e-mail marketing, direct marketing, public relations or stunt campaigns, I cringe. Early last year, we wrote that there are more ways to reach an audience than ever before. And even in the current economic climate, in which business are reducing marketing budgets while devoting larger chunks of the remaining dollars to online media of one form or another, it is reckless and silly to talk about one marketing channel obsoleting another. Social media, by definition, is collaborative, and effective social media campaigns are always designed with synergy in mind.

This is nowhere more evident than with e-mail marketing. E-mail is already a fairly social marketing channel. Companies send small polls, surveys, and contests in many of their mailings, and an even higher percentage of mailings feature a call to action for the recipient to forward the e-mail to a friend. For a medium that, at its core, is interruptive and monologic, e-mail does a surprisingly good job fostering interactivity and community. Better than perhaps any other method, e-mail allows companies to directly target and engage an audience that has universally expressed interest (by opting to receive the e-mails). What e-mail cannot do, however, is bring customers into direct contact with a company and with each other. Social media can, of course, through blogs or social networks or video or Twitter.

But the larger point is that, when combined, e-mail and social media complement one another and shore up their respective weaknesses to such a significant degree that it’s almost impossible to see how some marketers came to the conclusion that social media campaigns would replace e-mail marketing campaigns. If you want to give customers an avenue for discussion, for instance, you can add information about a company Facebook page (or even an internal forum) to your mailings, thereby giving your e-mail audience a direct path to that discussion. Conversely, you can feature opt-in links for your mailing list on Facebook so that people who discover the page organically can easily subscribe to the e-mail list. This is just one of many simple and straightforward ways e-mail and social media can work together.

But enough with the simple ways. There are far more interesting approaches that leverage the synergy between e-mail and social media campaigns. You could use e-mail to promote the initial launch of a promotional or viral video, or use a blog as an informative tool that is also a gateway to premium content distributed only by e-mail. You could leverage social network presence to make your e-mail seem more disarming and familiar, or use both e-mail and social networks to push a contest, game, incentive program, or sale. And as more people enter the social web and mobile e-mail clients continue to improve, there will only be more opportunities like these.

I think the mistake people make when they discount these synergistic strategies is to assume that e-mail campaigns should promote social media, or that social media campaigns should somehow promote e-mail. It is, of course, ridiculous to use one marketing channel to promote yet another marketing channel, and any company who does so will not have an effective marketing program. To take the first simple example I gave, the synergy I’m talking about has nothing to do with sending an e-mail to your subscribers that tells them your company now has a Facebook page. It has everything to do with adding a small panel to your e-mails that simply tells your subscribers that, should they wish to connect on Facebook, your company is there. Regardless of what marketing channel or combination of channels you are using, your priority must be to give value to your customers.

It’s important to remember that word of mouth marketing and social media campaigns have a somewhat unique ability to act as the proverbial glue that holds a larger marketing program together. Whereas TV advertising, publicity stunts, and even e-mail can’t access targets within their comfort zone, social media’s pervasive presence can. It is the casual voice, the near-constant presence, and the reinforcer. Social media has no means, no method, and no desire to supplant other marketing channels. To suggest otherwise is absurd.

Technology should make our lives easier, and the internet, in part, should bring us information faster and allow us to communicate better. Many of these benefits result due to automation of previously manual tasks. For example, do you remember AIM’s news ticker? Who needed to check news websites when you could just have that open and click on the headlines you liked?

Okay, maybe that’s a bit old for some of us. How about RSS feeds for news sites? Who needs to check CNN.com when you can just grab the RSS feed and be alerted about new stories?

One of the nice things about RSS is that it automatically brings news to me. New post on your blog? I don’t have to remember to check every day. RSS tells me when there’s something new.

Similar to this, we’ve seen the emergence of auto-tweeting in the last year. For those of you who don’t know, services like Twitterfeed allow twitterers to auto-tweet any RSS feed. Mostly, that takes the form of, for example, “New blog post: Day 46 of the Mayonnaise Diet http://nondescriptURL.com.”

As well, services like Tweetlater and SocialToo allow twitterers to automatically direct message or @ reply new followers. Sometimes, that takes the form of, “Just wanted to say hi and thanks for following. Looking forward to tweeting with you.”

These are great tools when used politely, but too many people have gotten lazy with these things and are obnoxiously taking advantage of them.

The problem that many of us have is the blatant, over-the-top advertising that is done. Personally, I think Twitterfeed is really useful. I like knowing when my tweeple post something new. I won’t always read their stuff, but at least, I have the option. The problem comes when you auto-tweet things like, “If I suggested you read one thing today, it’d be this http://URLshorteningservice.com.” To me, that sounds like you found something interesting, and you’re not just shamelessly promoting yourself.

Have a new blog post? Think it’s spectacular? Set your auto-tweet to begin with something like, “My new blog post,” not, “Let me mislead you just to increase my pageviews.”

Now, a lot of so called Twitter experts will complain about auto-tweets for hellos. Truth be told, I think they’re great. I simply cannot send a personal hello to everyone that follows me within a short time of them doing so. Sometimes, I’m too busy. Other times, I’m just not on Twitter. So, what do I do? I auto-direct message a polite hello and then follow up later with a personal hello to anyone that has responded.

This has two benefits. One, it’s simple for me to welcome people, and two, it cuts down the number of people I have to say hi to because there are so many twitterers that follow just to see if you will follow back, but they have no genuine interest in you. So, I figure that, if they message me back with a hello, I should take the time to check out their profiles, maybe their blogs too, and then tweet them a genuine greeting.

The followers that I ignore are the ones that direct message me something like, “Your the coolest person ever! So, I’m giving you access to my new top-secret post on making money the easy way http://ShameShameShame.com.” Notice the confusion between your and you’re, as well as the person just assuming I’m interested in that sort of post, and saying I’m the coolest person ever when s/he likely has never met, or even heard about, me? That’s just poor and annoying salesmanship there.

Chris Brogan would say, “I offered to shake your hand, and you stuck your tongue down my throat. Yuck.” Wait until you’ve built a relationship with me before you assume I’m even interested in your moneymaking tips. If I am, you’ll get lots of pageviews from me instead of just an immediate unfollow due to the uncouth hello you just sent.

What does this all mean? Automation services are great when used correctly. When they’re used incorrectly, they burn bridges that you’ve barely begun to build. Go ahead and auto direct message me a hello and maybe even your URL. Go ahead and auto-tweet your new blog post. Just don’t make any assumptions about what your new followers are interested in, and definitely, do not mislead them. This way, you can join the ranks of Twitter for Smart People and not Twitter for the Socially Inept.

In my American History class back in high school I remember hearing that “Kennedy was the television President,” and I remember watching footage of the first televised presidential debate between Kennedy and Nixon. To a classroom filled with teenagers of the so-called MTV Generation, it was painfully clear which candidate was at ease with the new medium and which one was not. In fact, Kennedy was more than just at ease with the medium, he embraced it, he made it work for him.

I have absolutely no doubt that my children (hypothetical in this case…I don’t have kids yet) will learn that Barrack Obama was “the internet President.” Like Kennedy was with television, Obama is with the web. The internet is the defining communications medium of our time, and the skill with which President Obama has embraced it absolutely dwarfs that of any other politician I am aware of.

I have developed a fascination with our new Commander-in-Chief’s use of the digital realm. Last week, I wrote about the White House website rollover, and since then I have been closely following new White House presences online. One of my favorite finds is the White House YouTube channel, where the masses can have instance access to President Obama’s weekly video address, and a slew of other content like Vice President Biden’s new video. For anyone who’s interested, the TubeMogul blog has some cool demographic stats on the White House channel.

Evidently the Obama Administration isn’t stopping its video distribution strategy with just YouTube. Social Media Playground pointed out that the White House also has a channel on Vimeo. Now the White House just needs to get a Twitter account and they’ll be running on all Web 2.0 cylinders. (Note: the twitter account @thewhitehouse is not official.)

I suppose the real question here is what all this social media will amount to. We already know that the Obama Campaign all but revolutionized use of the internet for campaign fund raising, but it is far too early to know whether the Obama Administration can that tech savvy to revolutionize governing. It seems to me that in a democracy “of the people, by the people, and for the people” any system whereby there is a more immediate connection between the electorate and elected officials is a positive thing. Will President Obama’s White House 2.0 be that conduit of the democratic promise? In this question each and every one of us has a say. We, as citizens, must choose to use these new information channels for them to amount to anything. If President Obama is leading the charge towards a more connected democracy, success will only be reached if we follow.

Although the economic ground beneath our feet is squishy at best, we’re standing in a particularly sweet spot in the world of social media marketing. As more marketers turn to blogging, microblogging and social networks to build brand loyalty, the social media services themselves continue to wrestle with how to make a profit off all of our online activity.

Twitter has finally hired its first business development executive as it continues to look into pay-per-tweet and advertising revenue streams while Facebook has implemented a fairly lucrative advertising model and even manages to convince some of us to purchase digital “gifts” for our online “friends.” MySpace has found currency, both literally and figuratively, in the music world, as it offers bands a forum to reach new audiences and build their online following.

While these social networks flesh out their budget plans, marketers continue to search for the best way to retain customers and find cost-efficient strategies to communicate with them. As the economic forecast calls for more gloom in the coming months, those marketers who have managed to hold onto their jobs need to find a way to keep their brands in front of their customers without depleting their company’s remaining funds. Now is the time to shed your misgivings about social media marketing. Until these services start charging a registration and usage fee, it’s too costly to your own business objectives NOT to try them out.

With that said, remember that the only solid social media strategy for your business is the one that works. There is no one, perfect way to maximize the reach and scope of Facebook or Ning or Digg. If you create a space in which you can continually offer compelling content and value to your customers and prospects, then they will return. Simply put, the old excuses for why your business can avoid dipping its toe in the social media marketing pool no longer work.

Social media marketing takes too much time to set up and monitor

In the time it took you to read the opening paragraph of this post, you could have signed up for a new Twitter account, written the topic sentence of your next blog post, or invited twenty people to become fans of your business on Facebook. While it’s true that social media marketing requires attention and upkeep, you will get the hang of it with enough practice. Over time, you’ll develop your own voice and get a sense of the type of communication your customers and prospects react to the best.

Social media marketing can’t possibly bring value to my business

According to a 2008 study by Cone, 59 percent of Americans regularly use social media, and of those, 56 percent find a stronger connection with brands that have established some sort of interactive social media environment. While the ROI of social media marketing can be difficult to calculate, social media’s intangible bang-for-your-buck is as a lead-nurturing tool. You might not make a direct sale through Twitter marketing (although Dell certainly has), but you will help your business to stay in front of its future customers, so that once the economic ground grows more solid, you’ll be in the right position to move forward.

In other words, social media marketing has grown from a fringe service into a viable marketing strategy for companies of all sizes. As Americans spend more time in online environments, it’s more important than ever before to solicit feedback and generate forums where you can demonstrate your company’s expertise. And while Twitter twiddles its thumbs over how to make money off of 140-character tweets, marketers can test a rich array of free services to communicate with their customer base and wait out the storm.

This is a guest post from Megan. Subscribe to our feed if you’d like to hear more of her thoughts in the near future.

or “Now that social networks have become politically and legally relevant, where the hell are you?”

The American Idol/Social Network Generation knows no world without the internet. Online video and other bandwidth-heavy experiences, to many of this generation, are as reliable as gravity. Be they fresh out of college or still bushwacking through the various levels of school, the people of this generation are known for rejecting traditional ways of consuming news such as print and television, and embracing newer, instantaneous ways such as websites, Twitter and now Facebook. Traditional ways of consuming information are increasingly coming up short as the definition of “news” becomes more literal every day and this generation is spearheading the change-over.

Over the past few years, social networks, once single-purpose tools for students trying to keeping in touch, have integrated themselves ever more fully into the fabric of the larger global society. After the college crowd, Facebook and other social networking sites expanded into the professional realm as a centralized tool to meet and keep in touch with professional contacts. After a more diverse cross section of people (and corporations) began to spend significant portions of their time on social networks, people began looking for social network-based outlets for information like news and politics.

The most recent, and possibly the most powerful, of these groups are the multitude of groups devoted to sharing photos from the recent Gaza conflict. Using photos of mangled and murdered children (be warned: very disturbing images), the groups are effectively presenting an unheard version of truth about a conflict that is a world away and making it hard for any user of social networking sites to ignore.

Recently, people have been using the groups and apps built into these sites as ways to even challenge and protest legal rulings. While many of these movements are largely symbolic, check out the millions of dollars possibly lost by Cinemark (to the tune of 4%+ of Sales) due to unpopular campaign donations by the CEO. With social networks taking such a large role in many aspects of society and people using social networks as a place to share their deepest concerns with the larger world, companies who resist social networks in favor of more traditional advertising need to ask themselves if their reasons for avoiding social network advertising are out of prudence, or out of fear.

Even if you fear these new locations as places to engage in marketing, in this recession, might it make sense to lay a foundation on these networks so that you have them as outlets for your message during the coming boom times? The financial and PR risk are significantly lower than other types of marketing, so what’s stopping you from reading some Chris Brogan or calling a successful social network marketing company? Ignore social networks, their communities and the marketing and messaging opportunities they offer at your peril.

At 12:00 PM Eastern Standard Time on January 20, 2009 Barrack Obama became the 44th President of the United States of America. At exactly the same time, and with considerably less ceremony, the official White House website transformed. It is undoubtedly a sign of the times that the “peaceful transfer of power” includes a website roll over. That alone could be the topic of a dissertation.

It is a much discussed fact that President Obama used the power of the web and of new media more during his campaign than any other candidate in the history of this country. What I find particularly interesting, however, is that this masterful use of new media marketing did not stop when he placed his hand on the Lincoln Bible. Quite the contrary, it appears that they Obama political machine plans to use the internet and new media tools as much for governing as it did for campaigning.

Upon first landing on WhiteHouse.gov, I am struck first by the slick, modern, elegant feel – something I have come to expect from the Obama camp. (For an intersting comparison to the previous White House website, check out this Gizmodo post). My primary concern, however, is not the look, but the integration of new, social, and dynamic web elements.

For fun, I pulled up the page source and glanced at the code and was surprised to see six auto-discovery RSS feeds:

• Agenda Articles Feed
• Press Office Feed
• OMB News Article Feed
• Blog Feed
• Photo Gallery Feed
• Video Feed

Oddly enough, it appears that the blog feed is the only one that is currently active. Nevertheless, excuse the somewhat juvenile excitement here, but how cool is it that the leader of the free world has blog, photo, and video feeds. (Please note that I am fully aware that President Obama is neither blogging nor running this website, but it is no less exciting that the office of the President has undertaken these things.)

The official blog of the new White House is prominently featured on the front page, and I cannot help but think that this is my new ammunition against the crusty old executive who asks, “why the hell do we need a blog?”

The blog itself isn’t much yet, but if you go to the front page of the blog, you can see that the first five posts were all published at 12:01 PM. Looking at the front page right on innauguration day, I could not help but notice that the very nature of this blog reinforces a sense of rebirth…it simply starts at 12:01 PM as if there was nothing before it.

Further exploration of the Obama Administration’s new website reveals an as-yet-empty section for President Obama’s weekly video address. There are no videos yet, but I would bet $20 that the video players have full shareabilty functions like one click embedding.

I finish my tour of the new White House website by visiting the contact page where I read “President Obama is committed to creating the most open and accessible administration in American history.” I’m generally too cynical to put stock in such statements, but compared to the previous White House website, this site is already taking huge steps toward being open and accessible.

Senator Obama showed the incredible power of new media marketing during his campaign, and it appears that President Obama will continue to leverage that power as he governs this nation. I will be following the evolution of the White House website in order to see if its promise of social connection is truly realized. I’m sure it will take a few months to get everything together, but make sure to check back in for my update of the reality of this new website.