That quote from Another Brick in the Wall reminds me of the cart horse situation with social media marketing:  If you don’t know your customers you can’t engage them. How can you ever hope to engage your customers if you don’t understand who they are?

There are so many questions from marketers and agencies alike about how best to grow businesses through online channels.  Questions are particularly popular when it comes to best practices for social tools. “Always do this” and “always do that” is what most marketers have been bombarded with for as long as there have been conferences to attend and email newsletters to subscribe to.

Inevitably, many of the most pressing questions about social media come down to understanding who you’re trying to reach. For example, some common questions I hear a lot at conferences:

Q: Should we blog or focus on Twitter? Is Facebook or LinkedIn a better fit? Foursquare or Gowalla? (Or other shiny object)

A: Find where your customers spend their time and spend your time there too.

Q: What type of social content should we create? How often? Where?

A: Study your customers as they create, consume and share content.  Then you’ll know the what, how, when and where. They why has to come from your organization.

Q: What  is the most overrated social media site?

A: The one your customers aren’t using.

So much time is spent on tactics without a good understanding of goals, audience and how to measure success with social media programs.  As we discuss Roadmapping social participation with companies, audience research is one of the key areas of importance. As I mention above, how can you reach and engage customers if you don’t understand them?

Let’s say you’ve used a social media monitoring tool like SM2 to identify who is talking about your brand and topics of importance to your prospects and customers. Within this analysis, you’ve noticed that there’s alot of activity on Twitter.

A logical next step might be to further investigate influential Twitter users.  If a paid tool like Radian6 or SM2 don’t fit your budget you can try free tools Trackur or Social Mention to gain some insight into content types, commentary and sharing/publishing platforms.

Other tools you might use to identify influentials on Twitter include directories like wefollow.

Under the tag, “SEO” you can see that Matt Cutts is the most influential.  Since reaching out directly to a popular person on Twitter, especially a Google employee, might not be prudent, it can be helpful to learn more about that individual and who they are influenced by as well as who they influence.

Using the site Klout, you can see a Twitter influence score (78 is pretty high) and other information including predictions on who is most influenced by Matt and more interestingly, who may be an influencer of Matt Cutts.

There are other tools that show communities surrounding an individual such as Top Twitter Friends.

As for understanding what kind of content someone likes on Twitter, you can look at retweets and @ responses. You can also look at what kind of content and what user tweets get favorited most,. Favstar is a tool that does just that.

In this example, Favstar shows which Tweets Matt Cutts has favorited. The types of content and users can be noted for guidance with future outreach.

I mentioned free social media monitoring tools above including Social Mention. Below is a screengrab that shows how much information you can get from Social Mention with options to download into Excel friendly formats.

Other Twitter user analysis tools worth looking at include Twitter Analyzer and Twitalyzer.

The basic tools I’ve shared here are just that, basic. They’re good for poking around and getting familiar with discovery of social content and influencers.  However, it would take a more robust tool set (which is what Agencies and larger companies do) to scale monitoring over many topics, influencers and conversations.

Other customer social media research tactics include:

• Survey your existing customers for social preferences and behaviors
• Review web analytics for social media sources and behaviors
• Tap into Compete, Quantcast, Alexa  information on specific social sites
• Leverage profile information provided by advertising staff on social sites themselves

In combination with directly observed and experienced customer behaviors and preferences, general site data can compliment understanding of customer social content needs.  What are some tactics and tools you’ve found useful for researching customers on the social web?

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For many companies that are new to web analytics the idea of digging in and finding useful information can be daunting.  It’s common marketing sense to measure what you’re marketing, but making sense of analytics data doesn’t always find time in the mix of duties a small business or new web site owner is responsible for.

The amount of information that analytics packages deliver isn’t always easy to sort through and turn into business decisions. So what should those that are new to web analytics do? Keep it simple and start off with the basics.

Each analytics package is different in features, price and learning curve. I’d suggest starting out with Google Analytics as it’s free, feature rich, and not too complicated to learn. Start off by looking at the items below.

• Unique Visitors – Unique visitors are are an important metric as it counts everyone as one for any given time period. This means that if you had 250 unique visitors, 250 different people visited your site at least once. If your unique visitor number is low, it could mean that your site is either having issues in search engines, or need more content.
• Traffic Sources – Are you getting traffic from Google, Yahoo, Twitter, or other sites? Referring information can help you see where your traffic is coming from which you can then use to make decisions on where and how to promote your future content.
• Referring Keywords – These are the phrases that someone put into a search engine and arrived at your site with. Ideally they’d be keyword phrases that related to your company. If not, then it may be an indication that you’re either not optimized, or optimized for the wrong phrases.
• Top Content – No matter what size your site is, knowing what pages get the most traffic can help you when building out new pages. Using the same format, or building out content on that topic, can help drive more traffic. These are also pages that call to action (CTA) buttons should be added if you want your visitors to do download a white paper or do something specific.
• Location – If your business wants a strong local presence, the location area in analytics can tell you country, state and city of where your visitors are coming from. Are your visitors actually local? That’d be a good thing to know.
• Campaign Tracking –  Track visitors from sources where you are marketing to a particular goal page or conversion.

As you feel more comfortable with Google Analytics you can then start to explore other actionable data including conversions, trends and features such as the most often used search terms on your internal search engine. Features like goals, top entrance/exit pages, bounce rates, and time on site are also a good metrics to use in understanding how visitors are interacting with your content. Visit the Google Analytics Help page to find out everything you need to know to make the most out of GA.

Web analytics can be overwhelming as there is a lot of information to be analyzed and then decisions that need to be made from that data. Instead of trying to jump in and consume it all, take it one step at a time.

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The photo to the left is my flexible business partner, Susan Misukanis, who “Rocks” as President of TopRank Marketing.

Many in the list below are from the PR industry that I know so it’s biased in that way. Suggestions of other accomplished & influential women in social media (consultants and corporate) are welcome. Now on to the list:

Katie Paine @kdpaine – Katie is a world traveler, author, consultant and PR measurement guru that has been publishing, presenting and educating us about PR and social metrics long before social media, social web, social this and social that became fashionable amongst communicators, marketers and certainly, mainstream media.

A. Jo. Martin @digitalRoyalty – Amy Martin’s Twitter bio (and follower count of 1 million plus) is one hell of a resume: “Work w/ Shaquille O’Neal, UFC, White Sox and other sports, athletes, entertainment and corporate brands to develop measurable digital & social media strategies”. That’s not all: There’s YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, UStream and others. Walk the talk

Charlene Li @charleneli – A true pioneer in the field of social computing, Charlene’s accomplishments with Forrester and as co-author of “Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies” propelled her into starting Altimeter Group providing thought leadership, research and consulting on new technologies. She shares insights on her blog.

Tamar Weinberg @tamar – A techie at heart, Tamar has been an active power user and social media marketing practitioner for several years. She’s also an author of an excellent book on Social Media Marketing called, The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web.

Valeria Maltoni @ConversationAge – I like to think of Valeria as an Italian secret social media agent that helps others learn the value of conversations and connecting people on the social web. Among her many other accomplishments, she’s authored an eBook, “Marketing in 2010 – Social Media Becomes Operational” (pdf).

Jessica Smith @JessicaKnows – Once a Wal-Mart mommy blogger and now VP & digital integrator at Fleishman-Hillard, Jessica and I met on a panel (Looking Ahead: The Nexus of Social Media & Public Relations) at PRSA International in San Diego. Her practical insight made a big impression. So very smart.

Shonali Burke @shonali – A true social butterly, Shonali can be found speaking at conferences or Waxing Unlyrical on media & communications topics. More likely, you’ll find her working with clients on strategic communications, PR and social media as an independent consultant – a career she moved into after working with the ASPCA.

Beth Kanter @Kanter – Beth Kanter is a social media force of nature in the non profit space. She has the longest running blog for non profits, is the CEO of Zoetica and co-author of the upcoming book, “The Networked Nonprofit”.  In 2009 Beth was named by Fast Company Magazine as one of the most influential women in technology and one of Business Week’s “Voices of Innovation for Social Media. Be social, do good. Walk the talk.

Maggie Fox @maggiefox – Maggie is CEO of Social Media Group, which is a very large social media consulting agency that has worked with the likes of Ford Motor Company, SAP Global Marketing, Yamaha Motor, Corbis and Harlequin Publishing. She’s also a frequent conference speaker and contributes to the SMG blog.

Mari Smith @MariSmith – With enthusiastic Mari, 8,688 Facebook fans and nearly 60,000 followers on Twitter, there’s no question she a power social media practitioner. That “walk the talk” perspective helps her provide social media training and share her insights as a speaker and consultant.

Jennifer Cisney @kodakCB – I think Jennifer is the first blogger with a “Chief” designation, given for her role as Chief Blogger and Social Media Manager at Eastman Kodak. She’s active both in her professional role and personally on sites like Twitter, Facebook and blogging. More walk the talk.

Kami Huyse @kamichat – Not content with simply running her own PR and social media consulting practice, running workshops and publishing her insights on effective social communications, Kami decided to co-found another agency, Zoetica, serving the non-profit sector.

Deirdre Breakenridge @dbreakenridge – Author and c0-author of several important books on PR and social media including, “Putting the Public Back in Public Relations“, Deirdre runs a successful agency, PFS Marketwyse, and is an adjunct professor teaching courses on Public Relations and Interactive Marketing.

Beth Harte @BethHarte – Community Manager for MarketingProfs is a position Beth takes to heart (ba dum bump). It’s a great intersection of social media and marketing plus PR position that allows this long time marketing professional to show her stuff, besides blogging, teaching and speaking at conferences.

Shannon Paul @ShannonPaul – The “very official” Shannon Paul was helping the Detroit Red Wings with their social media before she landed a spot at PEAK6 where she excels even more as a social media manager.

Amber Naslund @AmberCadabra – In my opinion, Amber as Director of Community is exactly what Radian6 needed. Her mix of marketing and social media expertise is shared on Altitude Branding as well as through several eBooks and speaking at conferences.

Liz Strauss @lizstrauss – Don’t be alarmed if Liz calls you a SOB. That’s a good thing. Her SOBCon event is a think tank for social media and attracts the brightest and the curious-est. Liz is another “walk the talk” and highly networked social web enthusiast that blogs, consults and speaks at industry conferences.

Debbie Weil @debbieweil – Debbie “wrote the book” on corporate blogging (The Corporate Blogging Book) when most online marketing and communications professionals were still trying to figure out what a blog was. She runs a successful corporate blogging and social media consulting practice, works as a strategic advisor for Compendium software and continues to share her insights via blog and public speaking.

Laura Fitton @Pistachio – Laura was an early star on Twitter and with a mutual embrace, she’s turned that knowledge and network into a new business, oneforty along with consulting, speaking and co-authoring a book, “Twitter for Dummies”.

Sarah Evans @PRsarahevans – Sarah Evans showed up on Twitter like a firecracker (on my radar at least) and hasn’t looked back since with #journchat, blogging, Facebook, Twitter and plenty of real-world social networking at conferences. She’s also launched sevans Strategy and works as a Community Manager at PitchEngine.

Toby Bloomberg @TobyDiva – Toby is the original social media diva in my book and a long time business blogging evangelist for companies since 2004. She consults with companies on strategic marketing plans that incorporate social and traditional media.

Li Evans @storyspinner – As Director of Social Media for Serengeti Communications, Li is one of the few SEO savvy social media people I know that also has a public relations background. She’s a very active conference speaker, blogger, social network participant and publishes “how to” videos on internet marketing and social media.

Julia Roy @juliaroy – Julia is a Senior Manager of New Media at Coach and is yet another “walk the talk” social media participant with an active blog and participation on social sites ranging from Facebook to Vimeo.

Sally Falkow @sallyfalkow – Sally and I have been on many panels together at Search and Public Relations conferences talking about blogging, SEO and social media. She’s an active social media marketing and PR practitioner that blogs and runs an agency as well as a software services company called Press feed.

B.L. Ochman @whatsnext – B.L. “tells it like it is” as you would expect from one of the few people actually born in NYC, which makes her blog, AdAge DigitalNext articles and tweets both snarky and interesting. B.L. works with Proof Digital Media (part of Burson-Marsteller) as Managing Director of Emerging Media. She’s led some of the earliest social media consulting projects and has been blogging since 2004 (at least).

Check out the Twitter list of social media divas for a much larger group including Serena Ehrlich, Connie Bensen, Jane Quiqley, Rebecca Kelley, Lisa Stone, Lisa Barone and many others. By all means, make suggestions in the comments too.

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I’ve been talking for years about how businesses need to avoid the trap of thinking that being local will help them in search marketing. Just a few months ago, I beat that drum again, in urging that small businesses specialize on the Web. And that advice isn’t wrong, because most searches are not focused on location, and if you want to win those customers, you need to do something special.

But that advice is increasingly incomplete.

Every week another shoe drops on local search–search queries that provide different results based on the searcher’s location. Time was that searchers needed to type in a location to get a truly local search (”plumber in cleveland” or “dentist 90210″). Then the search engines started noticing the location of your computer using its IP address, and targeted paid ads and later organic searches based on where you are now, without you typing anything special into the search box. So, if you are in Cleveland, you just need to type “plumber” and you’ll see local search results and local ads.

But now it is getting even more interesting. As more and more searchers are using their mobile phones, the kinds of searches they do are changing. Now they are likely to search for “coffee” or “office supplies” or any number of things that they need while driving or walking around. This makes being local again the most important thing, without any need for specialization at all.

As iPhones, Android phones, and other newer phones make it simple to search for things nearby (Google just announced its “Near Me Now” service), you can expect mobile search usage to increase dramatically in the next few years.

So how can local businesses make sure they are found? Start by trying out some searches yourself. Start first with your computer, but then try your phone, too. Ask your geeky friends to help you by searching on their phones when they are near your location so you see what they see. Different phones have different apps; different carriers have different default search engines; different locations will provide different results. And as personalized results become more common, different people will get different results, too.

So, yes, it’s not that easy to check thoroughly, but you are better off checking in an imperfect way that looking at nothing at all (and just hoping that it goes well). And there are ways for you to help yourself:

• Use location words. It doesn’t hurt to make sure your address is in your footer of every Web page and that you use other location words to describe your business (”Cuyahoga County” or “greater Cleveland area” or “northern Ohio,” depending on how widely you draw customers from.
• But don’t overdo location words. Be honest with yourself. No one is going to travel an hour for coffee, but they might do so to get their classic car repaired. Make sensible choices about your real drawing area.
• Use local listing resources. You should make sure you are listed in as many Internet Yellow Pages directories as you can (most are free) but you can also use a free service such as GetListed.org to quickly show you how your business fares in local search, and help you make the moves needed to improve.
• Don’t ignore reviews. Yelp and other review sites have long been consulted by the savvy local shopper, but you should expect reviews to be increasingly built into the regular search experience. Google might have been rebuffed in its attempts to acquire Yelp, but you should expect every search engine to provide reviews in its searh results.

So, while that car repair shop still needs to trumpet its specialty (classic car repair) to draw customers from a wider area, focusing also on very local search might snag the motorist whose car just broke down a mile from the location of the shop. For that customer, it’s still location, location, location.

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(Note: Most of the data used in this post comes from MarketingSherpa’s “2010 Social Media Marketing Benchmark Report“, and from e-Marketer.  These two sites are great resources to see what other marketers are doing in this space and what portions of budgets are being allocated to social media marketing.)

1. Retail and E-Commerce will step up to the plate

The chart below shows not only the dramatic increase in social media budgets across all the industries listed, but how each industry compares against each other.  With one glance at this chart you can easily see that retail is stepping up to the plate this year with 79% of marketers in that category increasing social media marketing spend in 2009.  This is important if you market within this industry, because it can mean that this year you will notice more competition within the space, and it could influence both the social efforts you choose to partake in and how successful you will be at breaking through the noise.

2. Facebook will take the cake

In 2010, social network budgets will begin to reflect the social network of choice: Facebook.  As you can tell from the chart below, in 2009 MySpace received $490 million in advertising, but despite our efforts to help save the network from oblivion, it is predicted by E-Marketer to decrease by 21% over this next year.  Facebook will surely take the cake with an increase of 39%, but with this growth it will be forced this year to develop services that will show brands new opportunities to further engage fans, as brands will shift from only measuring fan page counts to also caring about fan page engagement rates.

3. In-House Budgets will be beefed up

According to e-Marketer, “most social media marketing dollars (60%) next year will go toward staff salaries for activities such as blogging, content development and monitoring of social channels.  Another two-fifths will be spent on outside help from agencies, consultancies, and service providers”.  Should this shift concern social media agencies like us?  In my opinion, no.  For most of the clients we work with, we typically see internal budget increases happen when the company decides to get serious about a long-term investment in social media.  For many, this means hiring social media managers that oversee, manage, and champion social media internally.  These internal social media champions are crucial, because they not only challenge us to bring ideas to the table, but they bring insight and knowledge regarding company business objectives. In our opinion, this synergy leads to success.

This said, if you are allocating a budget for social media, don’t just allocate it all internally or allocate it all to a social media agency (although we wouldn’t complain), but consider hiring at least one in-house social media champion, and then an agency who not only can bring ideas that bubble up to the business objectives, but also implement the concepts.  Because there are nuances within social media and many different skillsets required to implement successful social media campaigns, you will save time and budget hiring a social media agency. 

4. Expectations will rise

Along with the rise of social media budgets, also come a rise in expectations from CMO’s to produce measurable ROI.  An article by MarketingProf’s called “CMO’s Want Measureable Results from Social Media” noted, “Nearly three out of four CMOs (72%) who did not attach revenue assumptions to social media in 2009 say they will in 2010, according to the survey; in addition, 64% of CMOs say they plan to invest more in social media in the next year.”

As these expectations rise, how marketers begin to associate revenue with social media marketing will be important to look at.  In our opinion, before budgets are allocated toward social media (or any marketing tactic for that matter), companies should conduct research around their sales funnel, and identify the key performance indicators associated with overall objectives.   This is especially important for marketers who don’t have e-commerce functionality, and therefore need this data to make the connection between online activities and offline purchases. 

This research should help figure out important questions like:

• Does your product require education before purchase? 
• Does the general public know that your product (or the category of your product) even exists?
• Do they use search engines to find answers? If so, how?
• How have your current consumers been persuaded to try your products?
• Does an increase in site traffic typically lead to an increase in sales?

This just barely scratches the surface of the very important question, “How will I know I’m successful?”, that often comes from CMO’s after budgets are allocated.  With this in mind, we will be covering this in more detail in the months to come, so stay tuned.

Do you have any predictions to add to this list?  If you are a marketer, how are you changing your social media budget allocations in 2010? 

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One of the best examples I’ve seen recently was the one put forward by Nick Desbarats at this weekend’s TEDx Ottawa event. Nick is one of the brains behind ChoiceBot and has some great ideas about how we make decisions, and how marketers can tap into that.

There’s no doubt that tapping into the heart and minds of customers is the Holy Grail for any marketer, and platforms like Nick’s are making it more of an exact science.

But imagine for a minute if we didn’t even need to make physical decisions – it was all captured subconsciously. This is where I feel what I call emotional marketing 2.0 has the ability to step in.

Emotion Isn’t a Choice

While there’s no doubt that the choices we make when presented with options gives marketers a clearer picture of what we want, it’s still semi-forced. By giving a limited amount of options, we’re saying to consumers they have to choose something from the path we’re placing them on.

The problem is, emotion isn’t a choice; instead, what we choose to do is based on emotion without limits and there’s a big difference.

The way we react to sounds; to images; to melodies; to voices; to stimulation – these are the emotional pre-actions that define where our actual emotions will take us next on the decision path. Not just choices to be ticked off, or eliminated by “Strongly Agree” to “Strongly Disagree” scales.

And this is where true emotional marketing 2.0 comes in.

Technology and Emotional Marketing 2.0

Consumer electronics giant Toshiba has released a series of laptops that work on face recognition software. Fellow Japanese company OKI has technology that allows increased cell phone security thanks to eye scanning software.

Imagine the possibilities if you combined the two.

Imagine browsing the web and adverts or pages open automatically because your eyes sparkle when you smile, and your eye and face scanning-enabled laptop has recognized the change in the emotional picture of your face. Once the page is opened, it continues to open other sub-pages automatically depending on where your eyes are focused and the reaction from the iris.

Without doing anything but look at the items that attract you, your emotional profile is building your marketing profile.

• Non-profits and charitable organizations can see whether you take action and donate from hard-hitting adverts or softer calls to action.
• Car manufacturers can see if you’re a speed freak or family guy.
• Food companies can see what foods make your mouth and eyes water and what ones make you grimace.

And these are just the basic ideas. Suddenly, every single advert and promotional web flyer is tailored to you and your needs. All from the simple knowledge of what makes you tick emotionally.

Is emotional marketing 2.0 a future pipe dream? Perhaps. But the basis of the technology is already there – all that’s missing is the emotion. And that’s where you come in.

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I’m just a small business owner that happens to blog on a few times a week. But since my source of income is my business blogging takes a back seat to business needs. Most small businesses can’t afford to hire a full-time blogger or ghost writer so they have to work blogging into their many business-owner duties. And because those duties are so heavy on the business owner, blogging generally falls by the wayside as more pressing matters are attended to.

Many small business owners are out there thinking “Blogging? That’s just one more thing to add to my already over-booked work schedule. No thanks.” I feel you.

There is no doubt that sitting down to write a good blog post takes time. Add in artificial deadlines and blog posting schedules, that’s why most small businesses simply don’t do it.

But blogging is an important aspect of growing your business. The key to good blogging is understanding how to work it in, prioritize it properly, and not to feel obligated to anybody but your family and customers.

Establish your blogging priority

Many small business that blog find themselves torn between business obligations and feeling like blogging is one of the most important things we can do to grow their business. It is important but it needs to be prioritized properly.

Looking at the big picture, blogging isn’t just about communicating with our audience. Blogging, when done effectively, helps us improve our reputation, build a brand, get customers, increase search engine rankings and, ultimately, grow the business. Yet, missing a day of blogging here or week there certainly isn’t going to cause your business to fail or turn your customers against you.

As with everything else, you have to keep your blogging time in perspective and prioritize it properly. You don’t have to blog every day. You can set time aside on a weekend, or on your typically slow days and write several posts at once and publish them later. If your designated “blogging time” gets interrupted by more important issues, take care of what’s important. It’s not the end of the world if you don’t get your post(s) completed on schedule.

Know when to stop writing

All of our time is limited so when writing a blog post sometimes we find it taking a lot more of our time than we anticipated. And BLAST!!! you still have two more posts to write today! Ok, stop for a second. Think about this. Can your really long blog post be broken down into several short posts? Snip here, cut there and you just met your blog quota for the week!

You can also break your blog writing time into several shorter periods. Write one post a week, spending 15-20 minutes a day until it’s done.

Change your blogging patterns

It is often not so much a matter of how much you blog but a matter of the content you provide. Not every blog posts has to be 1200 words. Some can be a few hundred, so long as the information you provide is valuable.

If you didn’t get time to sit down and write your typical blog posts, just think of something that you can share in a couple of quick paragraphs. Write it, post it, move on. You can always go back later and revisit on and expand the topic it later.

Short posts can often be just as good, if not better than, long posts. Quick bits of information can be fantastic to readers who don’t always have time to invest in reading long pieces.

Create a blogging schedule

How and when you blog is up to you, but I recommend that you work blogging into your schedule. Have certain times of the day or days of the week or month that is designated as blogging time.

It’s also a good idea to stay a few weeks ahead of yourself. I like to keep 4-6 weeks worth of blogs posts ready to go. This gives me a chance to 1) write a post and go back to it later for proofing, and 2) have blog posts ready to go should something interfere with my normal blogging schedule. Then you never have to worry about not having a blog post ready.

Blogging can be very important to the success of your business. There is a lot of value and potential growth you can get from it, you just need to make sure you set time aside to make it happen.

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According to research conducted by Performics and ROI Research, about half of Twitter users who were introduced to a brand on Twitter were compelled to search for additional information.

The companies studied the activity of 3,000 users of social networks in the U.S. Of those polled, 70% use Facebook, 40% use YouTube, and 22% use Twitter.

Participants were presented with roughly 100 questions that explored how they discover products in social networks and also their thresholds for advertising and marketing.

The survey found that 48% of those who came into contact with a brand name on Twitter went on to search for additional information on search engines compared to 34% on other social networks, which to be clear, is also an impressive number.

The inspiration, it seems, was tied to a desire to surface additional information about a product, service, or brand with 30% claiming they wished to learn more. Just under one-third (27%), reported that they were receptive to receiving invitations for events, special offers or promotions. 25% stated that they visited a site after learning about a product on their social network of preference.

Perhaps most astounding, was the number of people who readily share brand-related information with others. 44% admitted that they have recommended products in Social Media and 39% stated that they have discussed a product specifically on Twitter. However, Facebook users seemed to edge out Twitter, with 46% of respondents talking about or recommending products on the 225 million strong social network.

The economy seems to have galvanized a new channel for businesses to benefit from cost-effective “un” marketing campaigns, mostly driven by the community seeking and sharing information about interesting and favorite brands and products.  Direct engagement on social networks in support of this new found awareness will either foster interaction and collaboration or wind up decreasing the signal to noise ratio and polluting the stream of interactivity and resulting actions around brands.

Encouraging data such as that produced by this report, will motivate businesses to engage or amplify their existing programs. Nothing beats value however – for both sides of the equation. With Social Media comes great responsibility and accountability. We either introduce resolution, hope, excitement, empathy, and opportunity or we take away from the experience and diminish our prospects.

Everything indeed begins with search and this is why inbound marketing and social media optimization are so critical in this day and age. The act of marketing through participatory programs is only part of the answer. The other side relates to understanding where, when, and how people are interacting around your business, your competitors, and other parallel products and services. Placing content and social objects in these networks, fully optimized for discovery, places strategic messages and information in places where it can and will be found. It’s not unlike hiding Easter eggs. You can either make them difficult to find or you can employ tactics to make sure those seeking them will find them easily.

The social web is much greater than your ability to converse and interact within it directly. Outside of empowering the community to help extend your tenets, story and value proposition, social objects can serve as your brand beacons.

Search and you will find. Strategically place and you will be discovered.

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1. Niche Follow- Simply put lists allow you to follow groups of people based on their niche focus. As Social Media becomes more prevalent in the business word, the ability to focus your tweets on verticals will become more necessary. That reason necessitates the need for Social Analytics. The lists are another way to organize and focus.
2. Topic RSS- In a way the lists are almost an RSS aggregator of niche topics. Much like http://www.search.twitter.com allows you to pull RSS feeds of #keywords, listing allows you to focus on topics.
3. Who to Follow? – This is an easy one. If someone is being put into a lot of lists, then they are Tweeting items of value. Being added to lists is almost like getting a high rating! This will keep people honest. I know I have started looking at how many lists folks are on before following them.  I have made simple criteria of 3 lists before following them.
4. Business Intelligence, Competitive Intelligence & Industry Pulse- What a great opportunity to pull in all of the industry experts, stakeholders and players into one list and monitor what they are up to. A huge BI opportunity that all businesses should jump on!

Here is the SEO List we made: http://twitter.com/authoritydomain/seo

I am not sure if you know this, but Twitter lists have been available prior to this week. Here is a few to check out:

TLists: http://www.tlists.com/ (thx to @TazmanianTayTay)
TweepML: http://tweepml.org/TweepGen/createnew.aspx

Ultimately, the ability to organize your followers by niche is much needed! If you have other ideas, please share them in the comments.

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1. Facebook Lite - A lighter cleaner version of Facebook originally designed for lower speed connections, including on smart phones, here and overseas, it’s also gaining traction in beta with some media overloaded techies. Why care?  A lot of those nifty widgets you’re using to deliver content to your Facebook page won’t appear in the Lite version.

2. Email Fatigue - Email is still the number one way for artists to connect with tans - particularly when making announcements.  But just like the rest of us, fans are suffering from email fatigue.  Solution? Use email judicially.  Put info in the subject line and keep messages shorter sending them to the web for details. Most of all,  create other avenues of communication: Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, text messages, etc.

3. Google Wave - This open source app combines email, IM, chat, Twitter and more in  a single stream or wave.(see video) Think of it is a feature-rich shared document or conversation. Google Wave opens up almost endless possibilities for artist and fan interaction. It’s currently in limited beta; so check for updates and try to get on the waiting list.

4. Android & Blackberry - The iPhone gets all the press. But consumers own many more Blackberrys than iPhones and will for some time. Android should also gain traction with important early adopters as more phones hit the market based on Google’s mobile platform.  So don’t just think about creating apps for the iPhone or worrying about how your pages load there. Other mobile platforms deserve your attention too.

5. Twitter Lists - You’ve worked hard to build your following, but your Twitter world dominance could change if you don’t pay attention to a new feature currently in beta.  Twitter Lists allows a user to aggregate multiple feeds together in a stream that they can share.  How could this effect you? What if 6 of the hottest death metal bands in Cleveland create a mutual Twitter list and your not one of those bands.  Start thinking now about who you can join forces with to build your own Twitter List.

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