In doing so, however, many have been making the common mistake of forgoing traditional strategies and diluting their brand in the process.  This short-term pitfall could lead to long-term ramifications, so special care should be taken to preserving the integrity of your brand through all communications — on- or offline.  And with the increasing saturation in the online space, it is even more critical to remain true to your brand position — especially with regard to messaging, distinction and value.

Here’s a refresher of the five tenets of branding and how to translate them to the digital world:

1. Brand Position: The brand position describes your product or service and usually includes your key points of differentiation [over your competitors]. Through your brand positioning, you convey your unique value and customer benefits.

2. Brand Promise: The brand promise is the single most important element of your brand that solidifies your relationship with your customer by delivering on a clearly communicated commitment through each and every experience with your product or service.  It boils down to making a promise and maintaining it through every interaction.

3. Brand Personality: The brand personality encompasses the traits that what you want your brand to be known for — the key attributes that define the dynamic components of the brand.  This depends in large part on the key characteristics of your audience so that you can engage them relevantly.

4. Brand Story: The brand story illustrates the history of your product or service and adds value and credibility to the brand.

5. Brand Associations: The brand associations are the physical elements that make up your brand, such as name, logo, colors, taglines, fonts, imagery, etc. Your brand associations should reflect your brand promise, graphically depict your brand traits, and support your brand positioning statement.

From an online perspective, #5 is the most important as this is how you’ll make a visual connection with your users that will stand out amongst a ‘text heavy’ universe.  Be sure that your logo and corresponding imagery is digitized and available in several different pixels and sizes, all of which must be readable.

#3 is the next most critical factor in the process.  Due to the experiential nature of the web, your brand personality is how you’ll interact substantively — and memorably — with your end users.

#s 1 and 2 are of equal importance in completing your e-branding effort because a) your position will reinforce to users what you stand for and b) your promise will demonstrate the experience they can expect through each interaction.

But most importantly, an unwavering commitment to delivering on these value propositions throughout the online engagement will evoke the emotion needed to culivate brand ambassadors who will proliferate your message across the web, and afford you the viral elements of the medium.

The brand story is the only element that you may forgo online as engaging users real-time does not allow for historical walks down memory lane.  And by virtue of your continued interactions with your users, they will write that story for themselves — figuratively and literally (in emails and blogs, on social networks, forums and message boards) so make sure you give them fodder to craft a positive one.

In the end, the trick is not to let the lure of quick hits synonymous with the online space short cut the brand process, which is essential for the long-term success of your initiatives, and one that will turn one-off clickers into brand partners capable of sustaining your presence and advancing your share across the cybersphere.  And that’s a true brand story you can write home about.

*Source: Internet World Stats, 2008, http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Backtype, at the core, it’s a comment aggregator that extracts all of the comments across the blogosphere and sorts them by user (based on information such as name, email address and website included in the required comment fields).  You can then claim your comments by setting up an account and profile page, which becomes a central repository of your commenting history.

But it’s so much more than that.  Like most social networking sites, you can follow other users and be alerted of each comment they make across the web.  Many don’t realize the tremendous asset that actually is as you can follow high profile bloggers such as Robert Scoble and Jeremiah Owyang to see their latest comments, which gives you direct access into whose blogs they are reading.

It also allows you to discover new blogs, and connect with other engaged users on a variety of topics.  Boom.  You’ve just expanded your network with quality, like-minded connections you may never have found.  You’ve also increased your online visibility, and created a vehicle through which you can demonstrate your thinking, writing ability and point of view, areas that are invaluable for a consultant to highlight with potential clients, as well as in developing thought leadership around a specific subject matter or scope of expertise.   It also reinforces a community of sharing, participating in conversations via — and sparked by — comments that would have otherwise drowned in an overly blog saturated space.

To help explain the concept and idea behind Backtype better, I sought out Mike Montano, who co-founded the service with Christopher Golda, to conduct an interview, and being the warm, customer-oriented person that he is, he happily agreed.

Why did you decide to create Backtype?

We wanted to be able to follow people’s comments. Despite having much greater ambitions today, we created BackType to solve that very simple problem we were having.

What were you and Christopher doing before Backtype?  What are your backgrounds?

Before starting BackType, Christopher and I ran another service called IPartee during our final year of university. We’ve been friends since high school and both studied Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto.

What has the response been like so far?  How have blog owners reacted to the service?

Since the day we launched, we’ve received lots of great feedback. One of the best responses we get is when bloggers tell us that they notice BackType showing up in their “Top Referrers” list — we’re very happy to reward bloggers for starting and curating great conversations.

Have you noticed any trends with the types of people who are signing up most?  Do you have a strong blogger audience?

A lot of comment authors that use BackType are bloggers, mainly because our service is a lot more useful when you attribute your comments to your URL (typically a blog).  A trend we’ve noticed is that many of our users are also professionals in marketing or public relations.

How would you describe the concept of Backtype to a newbie?  What would you list as the main benefit(s) of the service?

The benefit of using BackType is threefold: the ability to find, follow and share comments. Generally, people sign up for BackType so they can claim comments they’ve written on blogs and other social media sites, follow people that interest them, and share their comments on services like FriendFeed and Twitter. Following the popularity of services like Google Alerts, BackType also has a service (called BackType Alerts) that notifies you whenever a particular search term is mentioned in comments. That’s particularly useful if you have your own company or look to join in on conversations about a particular industry or subject matter.

What are some of the new features you’ve rolled out?  What future plans do you have in the works?

We’re working on a major release right now, and we’re also planning to work a lot more with other companies. Lately, we’ve been adding a lot of new sources for comment-like data: answers, reviews, etc. That’s something that will continue as we strive to cover more and more social media.

Discovery is beginning to get a lot of mainstream attention.  What do you think is the single most compelling aspect of discoverability?

I think that the most compelling aspect of discoverability is trust. Whether it’s a person on Twitter or Techmeme’s algorithm, you need to trust whatever is surfacing content and making it discoverable. At BackType, we help surface the comment authors and blogs that comments come from.

What services do you think are doing it well?

Twitter is particularly nice for discovering new content. You can follow people like Tim O’Reilly and you’ll be exposed to new sources and content every single day.

Can you share your business model?

Online conversations are a valuable subset of information online. As we organize all that information, we’re discovering new and interesting ways to create value around it. We think there are plenty of ways to make money helping publishers, advertisers and marketers be more productive and effective at what they do.

You have the most responsive customer support I’ve ever experienced with a free — or even, paid — service.  Was support built into your strategy?  What monitoring tools do you use to stay on top of the questions/feedback?

Thanks! Support wasn’t built into our strategy per se, but it’s something that we identified as being very important early on. We learn a lot from our users, so it’s definitely worth the time we invest in it. To help us, we use a small set of (free) tools: BackType Alerts, FriendFeed Search, Search.Twitter.com, and Google Alerts (though they’ve gotten a lot worse lately).

How would you define your commitment to your users?

For us, it’s all about creating value for our users. Everything we do is committed to that goal.

If you weren’t developing websites, what would you be doing?

I would probably be building something else. Previously I worked at RIM on the BlackBerry Bold and really enjoyed it from a technical standpoint. I wouldn’t limit myself to just building web services, but the thing I really like about developing them is being able to build, release, and make mistakes (and learn!) quickly.

If you could change one thing about the current state of the web, what would it be?

I’d make it more open. It’s unfortunate to see established services like Facebook keep their doors shut to developers, despite the massive amounts of value they could potentially unlock. Look at how valuable Twitter has become, not because of new features, reliability, or “strategy,” but solely because of its openness.

What is the best nugget of wisdom you’ve gleaned through the experience of building a web service?

We learned a lot from the mistakes we made with IPartee and BackType. The most important thing I’ve learned is to “release early,  release often.”

And therein lies the key — discovery.  Engines like Mr. Tweet also run on this premise, linking users with relevant contacts based on a variety of factors designed to enhance your online experience, and build and strengthen relationships.  Ming Yeow, founder of Mr. Tweet  says ‘discovery is the new cocaine’ and as the web continues to evolve and Marta Strickland’s party host concept becomes the norm, I predict we will see more services like these popping up, effectively turning down the noise while increasing the volume of quality conversations and connections.

You can follow Backtype on Twitter, and feel free to check out my customized Backtype comment page.

It’s no secret that I spend a lot of time on Twitter.  For me, it’s a valuable medium that facilitates quality sharing and knowledge exchange with smart, like-minded individuals who enhance my thinking and enrich my life.

That’s what it can be, at least.

It can also be a vehicle for shameless self-promotion, overridden with fame seekers and snake oil salesmen intent on building a huge network with little care – or concern — for who actually comprises it.  During one of my signature ‘rants’ on this topic a few days ago, I happened upon Sarah Doody’s profile, and after reading her bio, visited her blog, where her latest post was centered around this very topic.

It’s always good to connect with kindred spirits, and thankfully, Sarah is one of many with whom I’ve been fortunate enough to wax on this issue, among others who all understand the importance of quality over quantity, and how to build substantive relationships based on real sharing and mutual respect — something that the friend collectors and wannabe gurus lack.  And something that has precipitated me to write this post in my ongoing attempts to thwart the ‘popularity paradigm’ that makes racking up contacts more important than the quality of those connections.

At least five times a day someone posts, ‘Oooh, I’m almost at [insert absurd number here] followers’ and then proceeds to beg for people to help them get more followers as though they were poker chips, and as soon as they reach some magical number, they can ‘cash out’ for the grand prize.  But there is no end as people scramble and scurry to continually add new ‘friends’ to their social networks, donning them ‘influencers’ and ‘rockstars’ and other equally shallow and meaningless terms that have absolutely nothing to do with building quality relationships.

If someone gets to 500, they reach for 1,000, then 2,000 and so on.  But do they actually make any kind of real connection with these new ‘friends?’  Do they engage in meaningful interactions?  Do their thousands of contacts somehow augment their lives?  Or do they merely fulfill some vain attempt at being popular, resuscitating high school insecurities and hoping that by hanging out with the so-called ‘Internet elite,’ they will become so themselves?

I think there are various reasons why people continue to focus on quantity over quality, but as we continue to become more wired, does this mentality enhance or detract from our human-ness?  Are we evolving or regressing as a result of the endless supply of contacts available via the web?  It’s as though we’ve transformed into friend-adding bots scanning profiles for matching keywords and engaging as ubiquitous personas vs. actual living, breathing people.

The Internet is an immensely powerful tool with the tremendous ability to connect people with whom we may never have otherwise met.  People that do have the potential to positively impact our lives, but not everyone with whom you come across online will become your friend — or necessarily, should.  The same offline rules should apply whereby you spark a connection with someone [through any means -- online, mutual friends, restaurant/bar, etc.] that grows and builds from there. That is merely a launching point, and the accessibility — and abundance – of personal information should not mitigate the path to building a quality relationship.  Nor should those interactions be confined only to the cyber realm any more than you’d realistically be able to build — and maintain — deep relationships with thousands of people in the meatspace.

The web tends to create a false sense of intimacy, and when you tweet with someone daily or watch their lives in bite-size snippets in your Facebook home stream, you start to develop an affinity for that person and begin to consider them a friend. But the true barometer is if this is someone with whom you would leave your children or allow to watch your house while you’re away on vacation.  I suspect that, in most cases, the answer would be no.  So, while it’s possible to build real relationships via the web (and I have done so successfully myself), far too many detract from the true value of social networking when their focus is on the quantity in their network instead of the quality of their interactions.

Remember that the sum of your friends does not translate to the the sum of your relationships.  I have 700+ followers on Twitter but probably less than a third of which I have an actual relationship or would consider a friend.  That’s not to say that there aren’t many others with whom I learn and share on a regular basis, and I try to keep my network small to cultivate a community of people interested in kindred exchanges vs. arbitrary friend collecting.  The latter will eventually weed themselves out but it’s tough to plant a seed that has any chance for growth in an already overgrown forest. And the only way you could truly have a relationship with thousands of people would be if you had thousands of years to nurture them, and last I checked, that’s one thing the Internet can’t do.

*bajillion may not be an actual unit of measurement

Aside from the fact that it was just a lame attempt to try and elevate Microsoft’s ‘cool’ factor, it immediately struck me the same way that the ‘Pepsi Challenge’ did way back when.  Pepsi was never content with their share of market, always trying to compete with Coke with a series of elaborately overproduced commercials like the one where Michael Jackson’s head went up in flames.  From their ‘blind’ taste tests to their MTV video-inspired spots, their efforts were misplaced on making their marketing sexy instead of focusing on the product attributes themselves, and delivering on that.

The bottom line is that Apple is cooler.  There’s no question about that.

Macs are slicker, sleekier, sexier and just ‘ier’ all around than PCs in almost every way.

And the multimedia capabilities, fuhgeddaboudit.

But, to me, it’s never really been a contest.  So why is to Microsoft? And to such a degree that they are desperately clinging to a syndicated pop television icon hasbeen to re-ignite their popuarity.

Macs have their place.  So do PCs.

Mac OS X has some key functionality. So does Windows.

Safari and Internet Explorer… OK, so that one gets a little dicey but the fact of the matter is that the entire planet is not ever going to completely switch to Apple no matter how impressive the apps unveiled at the developer’s conference are or how many kazillion Gigabytes the new iPhone has.  Short of teleporting you to another location Star Trek-style, mass conversion is not imminent.

What Microsoft should be doing is focusing on the people who are loyal users of their brand and reach out to them instead of trying to appeal a whole other segment of the population who is never going to convert to Microsoft even if they do develop the ‘moistest,’ ‘chewiest’ new products.

And while we’re on the subject……………… moist?

This is an adjective best reserved for those peddling lubricant or touting the right-out-of-the-oven moist and chewy goodness of a Tollhouse cookie.

But it should never be used to describe software.

Never.

I think that’s in the Ten Commandments actually.

Thou shalt not use the word ‘moist’  in vain.

Shame on you, Crispin Porter.

I wonder if they were motivated more by the media frenzy circus resulting from this spot or winning an Addy award than advising Microsoft effectively about their brand. Or maybe the Creative Director ‘lost’ the strategy brief because it certainly doesn’t seem to be meeting any sound communications objectives.

In my opinion, all Miscrosoft’s succeeded in doing is alienating their current customers while becoming the laughingstock of the diehard Apple disciples.

Bill, you’re not hip. But that’s OK.

You’re a trillionaire ten times over; isn’t that enough??! Just focus on what it is you do, and do it well.  Leave the glitz and glam to Apple and focus on your productivity suite. Quit spinning your wheels on ‘delicious’ concepts and sharpen your business game before the forbidden fruit takes a bite out of that too.

In the end, remember it was Coke who taught the world to sing and Pepsi who said, ‘we’re better than Coke,’ and Coke is still the market leader.

Social media is a tactic.  Not a strategy.

And contrary to popular belief, it is not the only way to build a community or strengthen relationships with your customers.

Whatever happened to selecting the right vehicles in support of marketing goals?

Or developing strategic objectives?

And then crafting a media plan in support of those objectives?

The fact is that social media is just one channel in a fully integrated marketing mix.  It’s not the only channel.  And it’s certainly not always the best channel.  Nor is it right for every company.  In every vertical.  In every campaign.

I’ll wait a moment to let that sink in.  Please re-read that last paragraph several times if necessary.

I know it’s a radical concept in this age of Stepford-like social media disciples, but social media is just MEDIA.

It’s not the holy grail.

Or the sword of Excalibur.

Or the one ring of power from Lord of the Rings.

Or any other mythical legend or fantastical folklore.

If you disagree, perhaps you, Santa Claus and the tooth fairy can discuss it further.

That said, I am a big proponent of the power of social media to produce results.  For the right client.  As part of a comprehensive marketing plan.  But if your definition of effectively deploying a social media ‘strategy,’ is creating a profile on Twitter or setting up Facebook group, you might need to dust off your college marketing 101 textbooks.  Or simply read on as I attempt to demystify the successful utilization of this elusive tool.

When looking to incorporate social tools into your marketing program, make sure that you’ve selected the best vehicles based on the following key questions (WARNING: these questions may demonstrate that social vehicles are not the right option in all cases. Please do not panic.):

• What is my overall marketing objective? This is a very important tenet of marketing and yet one that seems to be overlooked more and more.  If your objective is general brand awareness/exposure, you should select different media vehicles than if you’re trying to stimulate trial and usage of a new product or service.  It’s critical to identify what it is you’re trying to accomplish before blanketing the market.  If data capture is your main goal, for example, tweeting at your customers is not the answer.  Not as a primary tool anyway.  It may be better employed as a supplement to your other efforts.
• What is my communications objective? As in, what key messaging do you want to impart to your end user?  Just because you have something to say doesn’t mean you need to say it everywhere (or to everyone).  Some messages resonate better using media where there is less ‘noise’ or where users are pre-disposed to your message, such as at a topic-specific site vs. a multi-user type/broad content network like Twitter.
• Where is my audience? This assumes you know whoyour audience is, and basic demographic and psychographic information to determine where the best places are to reach them — on- oroffline.  It might seem unheard of these days, but the Internet is not always most effective channel.  <pause for gasps of disbelief>  When you break out of the tunnel vision that is the social web, you open yourself up to a world of possibilities and can develop more targeted plans with a mix of vehicles that work synergistically in driving results.  Is your audience surfing the net on a mobile device or are they sitting in a waiting room leafing through a magazine?  If you reach your audience through their primary points of interaction — wherever or whateverthat may be, you will be more successful in sparking your desired behavior.  If a Facebook group is deleted and there were no members, does it make a sound?  More accurately, did it have any impact?
• Is my audience primed for my message? The common misconception is that social media cuts through the clutter, but there can actually be more waste using those tools if you don’t target effectively.  If you want your message to resonate with users, choose a vehicle where they are in a relevant mindset.  If you’re Home Depot, tweeting about your summer sale won’t matter to me unless I’m in the market for a garden hoe; which parrots my previous point about delivering the right message using the right vehicle.

These questions will definitely aid in thinking more targetedly about your campaigns, planning more efficiently, and marketing more effectively but if you remember (or don’t care about) anything else from this post, at least memorize this phrase: MAKE IT ACTIONABLE.

Essentially, don’t just hop on the Twitter bandwagon because everyone else is doing it, or try to create a social network for actuaries if that’s not what drives that particular audience.  Pinpoint the action you seek to spark through your marketing (community-building or whatever you want to call it) and choose your vehicles accordingly.

@firefox_answers does this expertly by providing a forum on Twitter through which users can post issues or questions and get immediate answers.  It’s service-oriented, relationship-building, and actionable.  Dell also does this well with a healthy balance of promotion and service, strengthening their brand — and their user base — by bringing a real time, personal touch to the experience.

The bottom line is that no matter what your product or service or whether your company has a Chief Marketing Officer or a Chief Community Officer there is always some desired action you’re intending to drive.  So, just go where you have the greatest chance of producing (and reproducing) that action, which may or may not include social media.

For my next trick, I will make a positive, quantifiable return on my marketing investment.

Ah-mazing.

That’s how many users are currently on social networks worldwide. (Source: WikiAnswers, 2007. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_people_use_social_networking_sites_worldwide)

The number is staggering.

There are more users in the Webosphere than there are in some major metropolitan cities — even entire countries.  So, it’s no wonder that a new social networking site seems to pop up daily, all vying for a piece of this kajillion* dollar pie.

*may not be an actual numeric value.

But as I ponder the sheer volume of social networks out there, the thought of joining yet another one seems unthinkable.  Stressful even.  So much so that even if the social network equivalent of nirvana launched, I’m not sure I’d sign up.

And I don’t think I’m alone.

For most of us — especially people like me who are heavily entrenched in the space — it’s more than just being ‘social networked out.’  It’s time-consuming — and taxing — to undergo the process of sign up through daily use.

There are at least 10 steps involved to get started on a whole new site:

1. Sign up/complete registration form
2. Confirm e-mail address
3. Upload avatar
4. Set up profile
5. Import contacts (where available)
6. Find friends
7. Rebuild community
8. ‘Re-learn’ an entire new platform
9. Add and/or change socnet URL on signatures, websites, etc.
10. Begin using regularly

Some users may skip some of those steps, opting to check out the application more thoroughly before uploading a pic or inviting friends, for example, but the point is that it’s not as simple as 1-2-3 to integrate another social network into your online routine.

I think the fact that people are still using Twitter, henceforth referred to as the ‘Twitter Epidemic,’ is proof positive that quality is not the overarching factor when choosing a social network.  MySpace (pre-face lift) is yet another shining example that an error-free, well designed site is not a pre-requisite for mass consumption.

So, why is it that we continue to nurture the dysfunctional relationships with our current socnets, opting to settle for shoddy service, incessant glitches, poorly architected platforms and overall medicority?

There are many contributing factors, but the top three that keep bubbling to the surface are:

The grass may be greener on the other side but I already landscaped over here.

This is the biggest deterrant to adopting a new socnet.  All of us have spent significant amounts of time carefully cultivating our community and nurturing our network.  We’ve invested countless hours, energy and pieces of ourselves building relationships, uploading pics and making our profiles a unique representation of who we are.  What’s more, our connections have done the same thing, resulting in a living, breathing online universe that, to many of us, is a second home.  And with that, comes an affinity for the product despite any failings it may have.  That’s tough to walk away from — even for a slick new interface or totally bug-free experience (but we’ve all become so jaded we don’t believe it anyway).

I really loved the General Tso’s Chicken at the Chinese restaurant next door and they closed down.

This is a huge issue right now with the volatile web 2.0 world and start ups launching with a big media splash only to disappear as quickly as they came.  The recent coup with PodTech doesn’t help instill confidence either.  Users are skeptical of social ‘saviors’ spouting salvation.  And no one wants to spend the time setting up — and acclimating to — a new network to find it yanked from cyberspace shortly thereafter.  So many bide their time, waiting to see if it ‘catches on,’ which ironically creates a self-fulfilling prophesy.  If everyone is waiting for ‘the other person’ to try it out, it’s doomed to a dismal fate.  Even the die-hard beta junkies aren’t as fervent about snagging invites or testing out the latest (and probably not the greatest) service.  And it’s not that we’ve become lazy so much as disenchanted.  The new car smell has worn off, and it would take something as outrageous as George Jetson’s flying-automobile-turned-briefcase to get our attention.

I need another social network like the iPhone needs more apps.

The other factor in all of this is simply the overwhelming amount of social networks out there.  The market is completely oversaturated, and most of the new players are merely clones of existing sites with no real key points of differentiation.  Or if they do happen to have an unrivaled proposition, the above two barriers to adoption will make it difficult for them to gain any kind of penetration, which brings us to the million dollar question of the day: is it too late to innovate?

Being first to market is always a desirable position, and companies race to launch to achieve this highly coveted status.  It certainly worked for Twitter.  Even with the advent of other sites like Pownce, FriendFeed and Plurk that have all garnered some substantial share of voice, Twitter is by far still the microblogging leader.  And again the ‘Twitter Epidemic’ defies all logic as the strength of the community offsets the myriad of mistakes, mayhem and overall melee they create on an almost hourly basis.

It didn’t, however, work for Friendster as MySpace swept in and cornered the market, demonstrating that there is such a thing as being too soon to market.  Friendster may have garnered more success if they’d launched a little later, when the audience was more ‘wired,’ ready — and able — to embrace the social networking movement fully.  Most were still on dial up when Friendster launched, making a robust experience difficult, and diminishing the overall value of the concept.  Social networks need to function in real time, mirroring the fast pace of their users, so a high speed connection is a must.

But then you have Facebook, who after expanding out of the college arena, took the market by storm, now leading the social networking revolution and giving MySpace more than just a run for their money.  They have secured a leadership position, and after Zuckerberg’s announcements at F8 around the future of Facebook Connect, it doesn’t look like they can — or will — be usurped by a newcomer anytime soon.  In fact, it seems impossible that another social network will be able to break into this space at all with any sort of notable magnitude.

What actually appears to be happening here is that, as with any product, there’s only room for a few market leaders.  And we’ve already got them.

MySpace and Facebook.

Twitter and FriendFeed.

Last.fm and Pandora.

Microsoft and Apple.

Google and Yahoo. (Looks like Cuil won’t be taking a bite out of the search market. Ouch.)

Think about it.  This is true across any vertical.

We’ve got Pepsi and Coke.  RC Cola never even made a memorable blip on the refreshment industry’s radar screen (though I love the stuff and have been known to shriek with excitement whenever I come across it!).

McDonald’s and Burger King.

Kleenex and Puff’s.

Nike and Adidas.

Kellogg and Post.

Sure, there are others with varying degrees of brand equity within those categories, but for the most part, the market — and we, the consumers — can only handle a few powerhouse products.  Everyone can’t be a winner.  As a culture built on popularity, someone will always rise to the top.  And with the leading social networks off to a seemingly insurmountable head start, I contend that it may, in fact, be too late to innovate.  On a grand scale anyway.

Plus, even if the most incredible, original, amazing, ingenious, fantabulous, grounbreaking, awe-inspiring new site came along, it would just probably be gobbled up by Google anyway!

Yesterday, via their status update blog (that ironically resides on Tumblr), the Twitter ‘technical’ crew informed users to expect inconsistencies in their relationship counts but stressed that this issue was only related to the count and not to the actual relationships.

Co-founder, Evan Williams, even tweeted that just the ‘count’ was off, only to rescind that statement a few tweets later with an ‘OK, so it isn’t just the counts but don’t panic.’

Don’t panic?  Is attempting to cajole your users with a glib ‘we’ve got it under control’ attitude really the way to go at this point, Twitter?

We [the users] are way beyond panic, having run the gamut of emotions from annoyed and frustrated to aggravated and outraged.  There was even a hearty dose of humor along the way as the Fail Whale became an endearing mascot of sorts.  But we could laugh off the bajillion errors because our relationships were in tact.

Up until this point, all of the outages and Fail Whale sightings were an inconvenience at most, where we could seek refuge at sites like FriendFeed or identi.ca, or catch up on work free of Twitter distractions, until the service was retored, returning safely to our network of friends and followers.

But now that our connections have been lost, it’s a dealbreaker.

I’ve been a diehard loyalist to Twitter despite their failings because of the value I placed on the relationships I’ve built there.  And I have contended that the reason the masses endure all the ongoing abuse is because of those relationships.

Because of the community.

Because of the friendships and the conversations.

Because it’s too arduous a process to try and re-create such a sizable network from scratch on a whole new microblogging platform.

Plus, we’d hoped that if we stayed the course, Twitter would finally get its act together.

But they’ve made the decision for us.  By cutting my followers/followees in more than half, I see no reason to stay — especially given the fact that even if I were to undergo the daunting task of rebuilding my network, I have no assurance that it wouldn’t happen again.

And again.

And AGAIN.

If past is prelude, Twitter is doomed to fail.

No amount of money or technical ‘expertise’ thrown at the problem seems to help.  Any logical, semi-intelligent lifeform would draw the conclusion that Twitter is a flawed system beyond repair and to just cut your losses.

And it looks like that’s what thousands upon thousands will be doing.

Including me.

But where will the exodus lead us?

Identi.ca most resembles Twitter of all the clones out there, and uses an open source platform, but is still in its infancy with its own set of issues — like the inability to ‘unfollow’ spammers and a clunky, manual subscription process.

FriendFeed is great for long discussions and debates — and as an aggregator for the content and articles you bookmark across the web – but it can be very overwhelming with the sheer volume of information and text heavy posts.

Jaiku just never seemed to catch on (on top of which it appears to be in eternal beta) and Pownce, while an outstanding and user-friendly product, still hasn’t garnered significant market penetration.  At least not among my network, and therein lies the key to this whole conundrum.

People will go where their community is.

Up until now, even though users moonlighted on FriendFeed or Plurk or Pownce during outages, Twitter has held the lion’s share of just about everyone’s network.  Now with the data loss and communities crumbling under crashing databases, poorly designed infrastructure, and the ineptitude of the Twitter tech team, the market is wide open for a new microblogging leader.

YouAre is supposed to the answer to everyone’s prayers, but is still in private beta so it won’t be moving the needle anytime soon.

No matter where the Twitter casualties end up, I think the microblogging contenders — and future service providers — need to take note of the following:

1. Function over Form. No exceptions. - Having a sound, functional architecture in place is more important than a glitzy design.  No amount of bells and whistles can make up for the lack of it.

2. Build with the User in Mind – If you’re creating a service, you need to build it based on how your users will interact with it — and how they can get the maximum value from it. A cool graphical timeline, for example, may seem like a cutting-edge idea, but for users with substantial amounts of followers, it’s just not useful.

3. Respect your Community - You need to care about what your users care about, and strive to protect the things that are most important to them.  When a user signs on to a new service, there is some level of trust that is imparted.  They place their trust in you for things like their personal info will not be shared, their data is safe and that the site is accessible.  You need to honor that trust by delivering on your brand promise, maintaining open communication and consistent service.

4. Be Honest. At all Costs. - Don’t just sweep problems or issues under the rug or give users a false sense of security when the walls are crashing down.  Technical issues happen, but when they do, inform users, take all necessary actions to rectify it as quickly — and seamlessly — as possible and keep users updated along the way.  If you’ve embodied rules 1 through 3, any brief disruptions in service shouldn’t adversely affect your user base, and will keep your community in tact.

I don’t know where I’ll land yet, but one thing’s for certain, wherever I go, I won’t be needing a Twitter import feature!

But I contend that social media never really began — not on the web anyway.

What it seems to me that people fail to realize is that social media is not some fad like the Pet Rock or Ugg Boots (ugh indeed); it’s been going on since the dawn of time as club-wielding cavemen built — and leveraged — social networks to snag a bigger feast or a more spacious dwelling.  And it has continued throughout history as large sects of the population broke off into sub-sets forming religious groups, political parties, and public houses (today known as ‘pubs’ — isn’t the web really just a virtual bar that never closes?), all leveraging some type of social media vehicle to organize like-minded individuals and gather together.

And while most of that ‘gathering’ today happens online, the concept itself was not born with the advent of the Internet.

It’s an inherent part of our make up as humans to congregate and socialize.  Where that congregation takes place is irrelevant.  What matters is that it does take place, and more importantly, that substantive relationships are formed through it.

Relationships.  A critical element of the process that no one ever seems to talk about, opting to latch onto the word ‘social’ because it’s ‘hot’ right now.  And, interestingly, where most sites — and initiatives — fail.

The social aspect of the engagement is only step 1, and the easiest part of the process in my opinion.  And it’s really just a catalyst for communication and conduit for connection anyway.  With the right amount of hype and viral buzz, you can easily draw the masses (e.g. Plurk).

But the trick is keeping them there.  And building, cultivating and sustaining the relationship.  That’s the attraction — and the power — of the social web.  Creating meaningful encounters that are relevant to you and your circle of friends/peers/colleagues.  And then leveraging those relationships — and your sphere of influence — to some actionable end.

As a marketer, social media is just a set of tools that I employ for clients.  And it’s not even the only set.  Nor is it limited to the web.  When the focus is aptly centered around connecting people, in this case, a business with its customers, the relationship is paramount, and then you simply bring in the tools needed to achieve that objective.

One of the tools employed could be the web.  Or it could be an e-mail.  Or a text message.  Or, dare I say it, even a print communication.  And, in all likelihood, it’s a combination of all these things (or, at least, it should be) so that you have a fully integrated marketing mix — and multiple touch points — to engage in a two-way conversation with your audience.

What makes it ‘social’ is that conversation.  And the ability to interact directly with customers.  Not shouting one-way at throngs of users, with little to no relevancy, on oversaturated social networks under the guise of ‘social media’ or ‘social marketing’ or some other equally glib term.  It would be more accurate to refer to it as ‘harnessing relationship media for social sustainability’ but that’s not just pithy enough for the divas.

And you have no doubt worked tirelessly to achieve top results on all of the major search engines.

But have you spent any time tagging yourself?

We all know that you’ve spent plenty of time Googling yourself.

(Go on, admit it.)

So, why haven’t you played a part in how you rank?

If you’re a professional, touting your expertise on any topic, you need to build your personal brand, and the most important medium for doing so in this age of technology is the Internet.

But even if you have the most riveting blog where you espouse your brilliance with your astounding acumen and quick-wittedness (ahem, like the one, you’re reading right now), it won’t matter if no one knows about it.

Or if no one can find it.

And where’s the first place people look?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, your answer should be Google or [insert less popular search engine here].

Everything from the chick you met at the bar to the iPhone makes its way into that trusty search field, and the results can mean the difference between starting a new relationship or signing a hefty 2-year rate plan. So you want to make sure that a) you come up in the top results and b) the results present you effectively.

A savvy PR pro described this to me as ‘owning your name online,’ and ever since that seed was planted, it’s become a concept on which I’ve become decisively focused (read: obsessed).

But what surprised me most as I began my personal quest to own my name online is that most people think that they are powerless to what the search engine spiders retrieve.

Just this morning on Twitter, in fact, there was a tweet from someone who had Googled herself to see what came up, stating that she was curious about what people think of her based on the results. What she likely didn’t realize is that she can drive that assessment based on how diligently she harnesses the myriad of tools at her disposal.

From social media profiles to blogs, you can take control of what appears when someone types in your handle, and truly ‘own your name’ — and build your brand ID — online.

And, as it turns out, it’s not all that daunting a task.

Or even difficult to do — albeit a tad time-consuming.

So, feel free to reap the benefits of my careful study (read: fixation) to start creating the personal brand you want to portray to the world.

I blog therefore I am. – If you want to catapult your name to the top of the heap, start a blog. If you get set up on any one of the blog services out there – WordPress, TypePad, Blogger, etc. – you can quickly climb the search ladder. Because they allow you to host your site as a sub domain off of their sites, you benefit from the high volume of traffic from their network of users and turnkey linking, trackback and RSS feed options – all the SEO friendly elements that would take months and months to develop – and implement – on your own. Just be sure to focus on hot topics in the market that are being searched regularly and tag, tag, tag! Over time, if you want to further play the SEO card, getting backlinks from other sites with a higher page rank (PR 4+) will enable you to garner more organic traffic. But initially, it’s most important for you to produce relevant and high quality content on your blog to feed the various search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Ask, Technorati, and Ice Rocket). After that, you’ll want to get your RSS feed propagated across the major social networking sites that accept link sharing such De.licio.us.

Got something to say? Say it in 140 characters or less and say it often as often as possible. – Microblogging is HUGE right now, and that’s an understatement. It seems a new site pops up almost daily in an attempt to capitalize on this monstrous movement, and you can tap into it by setting up profiles on every single one of them – Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku, Tumblr, FriendFeed, etc. – and rambling on to your heart’s content. Text, IM and service integration providers like ping.fm make this task easier than ever before. The more posts you have, the greater your personal brand exposure – as long as you’re ‘following’ microblogging powerhouses such as Robert Scoble, Leo Laporte, Jason Calacanis and Kevin Rose, who all have in excess of 30,000 followers and are being searched on – and accessed – regularly. And try to reply to their posts as much as you can so that you can align your username with their pages that have literally tens of thousands of daily hits. But don’t spam them or you will see the adverse affects of their omnipotent online presence! (Incidentally, tagging those guys in this blog will help my own rankings. Aren’t I so clever?)

It’s a Social Thang – If you’re reading this post, chances are you’re already deep into social networking with profiles on sites like Facebook, Hi5, Orkut and MySpace, so you’re one step ahead of the game, but your profile will only appear in search results if it’s public, or if your name is linked to a public profile [by being friends with that person or submitting a comment or wall post, etc.] on their page. So there are two options that you can employ based on your privacy settings. 1) If your profile is public, you can maximize it by posting relevant content using vehicles like Facebook notes and MySpace bulletins. You can also beef up your ‘About Me’ section to associate yourself with key content and heavily searched topics, provided of course, that they are relevant to you. Don’t just repeat a term like ‘social media’ a dozen times because it’s a popular term right now. And, no, organizing your sorority formal does NOT make you a social media expert! 2) If your profile is private, you will still automatically appear in search results if you’re friends with someone’s whose profile is public – or even if their site is private, if they publicize their friend list with something like the ‘View Friends’ feature on Facebook, you will show up then too. Other than that, posting comments on public profiles about your thoughts on Barack Obama or excitement over the latest winner of Top Chef should do the trick.

Get LinkedIn – The LinkedIn network is powerful, and continues to grow by leaps and bounds as enterprise social networking becomes more mainstream, connecting business professionals from all over the globe. If you’re not taking advantage of this service yet, you need to be. Period. Although, truthfully, I am only just getting set up on it myself. But it works. The more connections you have, the higher your search results – especially if they are heavy hitters with topical core competencies. Hint: try to befriend an SEO expert! Plus, you’ll start reaping the benefits almost immediately (provided no one else with a more robust profile has the same name as you, that is) because their site is like one endless supply of search tags, which you control by populating your profile with key areas of expertise, interests and a finely crafted, keyword-laden summary. And if you create a unique URL with your name, it will show up in the title tag (the blue bar at the very top of your browser window), which is the most important bit of text on a web page as far as the search engines are concerned. Search engines not only assign the words in the title tag more weight, they also typically display the title tag in the search results, making it an important driver in attaining the highest rankings. Last, there are all kinds of tools and apps to promote your LinkedIn profile on blogs and websites with personalized buttons and embedding options.

Don’t Worry, Be [Comment] Happy – Submitting comments to articles and posts on high traffic sites like TechCrunch and Mashable, (or any other frequently visited blog or website) will also bolster your search status, and aid in developing your personal brand based on the thoughts you share, the qualities you exemplify, and the expertise you demonstrate. Their impressive daily visits and page views alone will catapult you into search stardom. Plus, Michael Arrington and Pete Cashmore promote the hell out of them on microblogging sites – and ALL of their online properties — so your exposure is increased exponentially (read: muchos mas eyeballos on your commentos*).

*may not actually be Spanish

You can also buy the domain of your name, and you will literally own your name online. In addition, according to SEO aficionado, Joe Apfelbaum of Ajax Union, registering your public profiles on sites like Mahalo, Digg and Propeller will produce rapid fire results.

While all of these vehicles will definitely help strengthen your search visibility, from a branding perspective, they will also show snippets of your personality to begin to build your personal brand, and give searchers a sense of who you are and what you represent. So, before you dive headfirst into the search spotlight, spend a little time thinking about your value proposition, and the image you want to portray to peers, colleagues, and/or potential clients who may be searching on your name. Then you can direct all of your online messaging accordingly and Google with confidence.

Bonus tip: You can use this service to monitor when you begin to appear in results. It has a lot of other fun uses too. No need to thank me.

But the fact that people are still using it, with seemingly some degree of interest, completely astounds me. It took me a sum total of about ten minutes to flee the frighteningly frivolous site frothed with fallacious attempts to flimflam its users with farcical karmic points.

Karmic points = an underhanded attempt to coerce you into spamming your friends and make you spend interminable amounts of useless time on their site, most of which is spent trying to figure out how to navigate the application and perform even the simplest tasks

How does no one see this??!

There has been so much controversy over Facebook applications that require you to invite your friends, but for some reason, the prospect of unlocking ‘super secret’ features on Plurk somehow makes this a palatable option.

Unless one of those features allows you to put a head on that creepy headless dog, I refuse to participate.Juvenile design and bizarre graphics aside, in my opinion, the Plurk vs. Twitter debate is hinged on one critical issue – Twitter’s technical problems.

If Twitter can fix – and sustain – the site, and all of the features on which users have come to rely, it will retain its position as the microblogging market leader.

What makes Twitter so powerful is not a slick design or a lot of ‘bells’ and ‘whistles,’ it’s the ease of use and ability to quickly – and effectively – connect with other users and share information.

It’s the content that’s valuable NOT a bunch of gimmicks that, for all intents and purposes, are designed to dupe its users. Personally, I find the whole Plurk concept insulting. And if it ends up attracting the drones and degenerates who choose superficiality over substance, I say good riddance.

Perhaps Plurk can be beneficial for weeding out the dregs, leaving a base of quality users on the site (and less strain on the servers).

… in a not-so-distant galaxy…

… there was a world without e-mail and social networks.

There was no MySpace or Facebook or Twitter or Pownce…

… no Google or Yahoo or Del.icio.us or Digg.

There was no WebTrends or Omniture or Double Click or ComScore.

There was………………… NO INTERNET.

<pause for gasps and shrieks of horror>

It was a barren wasteland where people communicated in complete sentences, punctuated, read strange paper bound objects and made curvy markings with their hands using bizarre, ink-filled contraptions.

And marketers marketed without metrics!

It’s true.

I marketed through the pre-Web era, and lived to tell the tale.

A tale of guessing and wishing and scratching our heads as we sent film (yes, film) with glossy ads to print publications, touting our brand message.

(For those as ancient as me, 133-line screen, Right Read Emulsion Side Down is forever emblazoned on my brain by overzealous Production Managers!)

We sent pithy copy to radio stations and shot TV spots. We procured huge Lambda printers to make bus shelters and billboards.

We all knew the term ‘Cling Z.’ (Not to be confused with ‘Click Z’)

We sent out direct mail with BRC’s (‘Business Reply Cards’ for those of you who grew up on the Internet and thought I just misspelled BRB – ‘Be Right Back.’) and keyed in responses by hand as data entry people tried to decipher human writing.*

*the act of using a pen or pencil to form characters using one’s hand instead of a keyboard.

We transmitted facsimiles (later termed ‘fax blasts’) on toilet-paper like rolls of shiny paper.

We gave out pens and paperweights and rulers and sticky pads with our logo and tagline on it, which we proudly donned the ‘logo lockup.’

All in the hopes of cultivating customers, building brand equity and gaining ‘share of voice’ in the marketplace.

SOV.

Yet another extinct acronym in the digital world.

And we did all of this with relatively little – or in some, cases, absolutely NO – quantifiable metrics.

Sure, we had focus groups (but we all know how helpful those were as we pranced around with marker comps and storyboards Vanna White-style).

And telephone polls. (Wasn’t everyone always oh-so-willing to take the time to talk to a telemarketer and provide feedback and insights on advertising campaigns? Not so much.)

And readership surveys. (Fill this out and drop it in the mail…rrrrriiiiiigggght.)

And ‘How did you hear about us?’ check boxes, the pinnacle of empirical fact.

Some more fancy schmancy marketing teams actually had varying 800#s for different ads, which in today’s space would be tantamount to unique URLs, but this was not the norm.

Unless you were Coca Cola, and could throw barrels of money around like drunken sailors to build your brand, your marketing expenditure could not be directly correlated to any sort of ROI.

Sure, you could draw dotted line conclusions: if you spent X dollars on advertising in the 1^st quarter and saw a spike in sales or brand growth, you could postulate the effects of your marketing, but you couldn’t validate it.

Not for certain anyway.

But we trudged on, trying to be more efficient in our spend, developing best practices and standards for how to achieve results.

My favorite was, ‘If your competitor is advertising there, so should you.’

Made sense then. Seems positively absurd now.

How about, ‘If your target audience is there, you should be advertising there?!’

That’s why the Internet is so powerful.

You can pinpoint with a high degree of certainty – if not 99.9999999% accuracy – where your customers are and reach them directly.

And you can not only get your brand message right in front of them, but you can also stimulate your desired action and bring them right to it.

All instantly.

In just a few clicks.

One to one.

You can even ‘follow’ them around and watch their behavior to see what they do or don’t respond to, and iterate mid-campaign.

Although I’ve been deeply entrenched in Internet marketing for more than ten years now, as I attempt to define online metrics and analytics, even I’m blown away.

The possibilities really are staggering.

And yet e-marketers are still initiating online campaigns without the proper metrics in place to evaluate results and optimize continually.

What’s worse, they don’t even bother to review the metrics that are available, allowing precious data to elude them. Data that could be used to drive sales, gain market share and generate, retain and cultivate loyal users.

I know what you’re thinking.

Why in the world would anyone do such a thing when we have a wealth of tools available to ensure the success of our initiatives that we never had before??!

I think it’s a combination of things.

Besides being just plain irresponsible, spending a company’s budget all willy nilly-like (and I believe that’s the technical term), it also under serves the web properties in delivering the most personalized – and relevant – experience to its users and robs users of the value that we, as marketers, are finally able to provide in pushing out targeted messaging.

To the right audience.

At the right time.

Using the right medium.

If someone had traveled back in time and told an offline marketer that they could specifically analyze each of their target’s behavior and revise messaging real time according to audience wants and needs, they would have looked at them in amazement uttering, ‘tell me more, Obi Web.’

Because that’s how fantastically, awesomely unbelievable metrics and analytics are.

Or at least can be if used properly.

So use them.

Seriously.

Do it. Do it.

Here is a really simple, ‘just add water’ cheat sheet of the high level metrics you should be focusing on to harness this immense power:

• Click through Rate: I can’t believe I even have to list this one but simply, how many people are clicking through from your ad or e-mail? Ideally, you should be testing different creative executions/messaging to see which has the greatest pull. A savvy marketer will also employ specialized landing pages per segment.
• Length of visit – How long did the user stay on your site? Studies have shown that if you can engage the user for longer periods of time in one session, they are more likely to reach a buying or conversion conclusion. This isn’t an exact science but the ‘time spent on site’ factor can offer some indication as to how compelling your site is. If you can’t hold their attention for more than a minute, it’s not likely that they’ll be performing the behavior you are seeking — or coming back.
• Conversion Rate – How many visitors completed your call to action whether it’s registration, purchase or another desired behavior.
• Site path – If you can tag your users with a unique id beyond just a referring URL denoting from where they came, you can literally follow their activity throughout your site to see where they go. This can give you valuable insights as to a) whether your ad/call to action drives them accordingly, b) if your site is intuitive in its navigation to key areas to which you want to encourage traffic, and c) if there are any trends as to when or where users may fall off in the process. (This brings us into the area of usability, but that will have to wait for another post.)

But merely reviewing these elements is not enough; you need to act on them to optimize for the greatest return. Think of it this way, you wouldn’t invite a hundred people to a party and bring them to a house with no food or drink. Yet that’s what you’re doing if you drive users to a site that doesn’t effectively lead them to your desired action. Just think of me as the one reminding you not to forget to buy booze before the big bash!

The formula is simple:

1. DEFINE the criteria you’ll need to gauge success before you initiate the campaign
2. DEVELOP the necessary code, tags, creative, etc.
3. IMPLEMENT the tactics accordingly
4. EVALUATE user activity and corresponding variables
5. OPTIMIZE, OPTIMIZE, OPTIMIZE

The tools are available. You just need to access them.

In other words, the only roadblock to success in your online initiatives is you.

Despite the varying platforms that execute on this concept, the principle is the same: gather like-minded people together in a personal and interactive way. Typically, teens and tech geeks have dominated the social networking space, dishing about the excessive sweating of their gym teacher and prom fiascos or sharing complex code solutions and Romulan warfare tactics demonstrated at a recent Star Trek Convention. But social networking has become more mainstream – from mommies to marketers, it has infiltrated virtually every aspect of the online experience. And now with the advent of Google’s FriendConnect, harnessing the widespread possibilities of the OpenSocial concept, social networking is poised to propagate and proliferate in epic proportions.

But how can it benefit your business, your brand, and your bottom line?

In theory, if you provide a place for people to exchange thoughts, ideas and experiences, they equate that positive experience with your brand, and hence, become happy, shiny little brand ambassadors for you.

Why do you think Rupert Murdoch ponied up piles of cash to acquire MySpace?

Not because it has a particularly advanced interface (it’s riddled with bugs actually) or because it’s a superior product (they’ve spent the better part of 2008 trying to mirror the Facebook application), but because literally millions upon millions of people have improved the quality of their lives and formed personal – and meaningful — relationships on there. And it’s that powerful experiential element that makes those loyal users a prime target for advertisers and more receptive to messaging they view on MySpace than any other site they may visit.

It also helps that recent studies show an average MySpace user session exceeds 8+ hours (when do these people work?!) and users are literally logged in from morning till night so there are always eyeballs on an advertiser’s marketing message at literally any given nanosecond.

Let’s pretend for a moment that MySpace were a person. If Mary MySpace introduced you to your husband or wife, wouldn’t you be more likely to take recommendations from Mary in the future? Because she’s already proven her worth by connecting you with something of supreme value to you. The affection you hold for your significant other translates back to Mary. In the marketing world, we call that brand affinity. But as you can see, it promotes the same intangible benefits.

Positive experience on MySpace = predisposition to ads generated via MySpace (and MySpace overall, despite its ‘flaws’)

And aren’t ads really just ‘recommendations’ from your friendly neighborhood conglomerate to, um, buy their products? OK, that’s a bit of a stretch but it illustrates my point.

If a friend recommends something to you, aren’t you more likely to act on it than if you view an ad from a company that is just trying to sell you something?

If you didn’t answer ‘yes’ to that question, perhaps you should re-think the company you keep.

Most of us would go with the referral from a friend over an impersonal ad.

Which. Is. Why. Social. Networking. For. Business. Is. So. Brilliant.

You can take an otherwise impersonal interaction like viewing an ad and make it personal.

Um, helllloooooo??! Is this thing on??!

This is the future, people! So pay attention.

Here are some possible real world scenarios for putting this gem into practice:

Host an online event – If you own a craft store, for example, you can have an online scrapbooking or Do-it-Yourself class where users can interact real time, exchanging ideas, tips and favorite products, after which you can offer a discount off the purchase of related items. There is an array of software like WebEx and Microsoft’s Live Meeting that makes this an easy-to-implement option for even the smallest of retailers.

Create an industry experts forum – A business solutions company can invite industry experts to participate in an online demonstration of their products in action, providing a peer-to-peer vehicle for strengthening the value of their offerings, and testimonials of success.

Foster a colleague community – Pharmaceutical companies are finding it increasingly difficult to reach physicians despite the fact that they are more “wired” than ever before. By providing docs with an online community through which they can discuss differential diagnoses, latest treatments and experiences in their respective specialty areas, they can facilitate better patient outcomes, practice efficiency and ensure that healthcare professionals utilize the right treatments through real world thought-sharing (DocSpace??). This ultimately serves the public – and pharmaceutical companies – by bridging relationships across the universe of docs that could not otherwise be achieved; and in doing so, the intangible (and dare I say, philanthropic-like?!) benefits are translated back in a memorable way. Remember, it was Coke who taught the world to sing and Pepsi who said “we’re better than Coke.” so it’s a smart marketing move to take the higher ground. Coke is still the market leader (even after the abysmal failure of ‘New Coke’ as many of us may recall).

But those are only a few, smaller scale examples of how individual companies — across various verticals — can capitalize on the social networking boom. The options are limitless now that OpenSocial has begun to take root in the socnets of the Interweb, and offerings like FriendConnect that I mentioned earlier, will make social networking solutions more accessible – and turnkey – than ever before.

MySpace may have opened the door to the power of social networking. But Google blew it off the hinges.

So, why are you still reading this post??!

Go forth and be social. The future of humanity depends on it.

Your ‘Internet Marketing for Dummies’ book may refer to CRM as Customer Relationship Marketing or Customer Relationship Management.

Po-tay-toe. Pa-tah-toe.

Either way, it’s about the customer.

No matter what the product or service, eCRM initiatives must be developed with the customer in mind. If you boil it down to that one principle, you can’t go wrong. Assuming you’ve got a sophisticated database in place, a sound value proposition, and a qualified list of targets, that is. OK, so maybe it’s a little complex. But if done right, it can be the most effective tool for reaching, retaining – and cultivating – a brand loyal, brand motivated audience in a highly personalized way.

In essence, you are simply having a one-on-one conversation with your customer just as you would with a friend. You wouldn’t talk at or try to sell your friends, would you? No, you’d simply (yes, again, simply) know them well enough to understand their needs, and then make meaningful – and personal – suggestions. The word ‘Duh’ should leap to mind. Or think Keanu Reeves’ “Whoa” in The Matrix. Oh yeah, this is powerful stuff. But in many ways, it’s also a no-brainer.

See, I keep telling you it’s simple.

So, where do you begin?

In this case, past is prelude. As in, harnessing the initiatives have you done in the past to help bolster the success of an eCRM program.

What information have you been able to gather about your audience to date? If you want to implement a strong program, you need to have more information than just name and e-mail address. Um, does the term ‘spam’ mean anything to you?!

But these customer ‘fun facts’ depend greatly on the type of product or service you are offering. If you sell home goods, for example, do members of your audience have a proclivity toward certain products? If so, which ones? Are they seasonal buyers? Do they buy full suites of products for large scale remodeling projects or just ad hoc items?

On the other hand, if you’re in the healthcare sector trying to reach physicians, what types of patients do they see? What are their prescribing habits? Even factors like how they prefer to receive communications are important. While the focus of this post is on e-communications, CRM as a whole extends to any vehicle through which you can directly – and memorably – reach your end user, including honoring any communication preferences they may have. The halo benefits of a positive brand association can be garnered from something as simple as reaching someone via snail mail – or even text (a rapidly growing movement) – if that is their preferred medium.

Simple, right? There’s that pesky word again.

But it can be. Really.

Follow these three simple rules when crafting your eCRM program:

(I’m trying to really drive this concept home via ad nauseum references to the word ‘simple.’ Please indulge me.).

Know Your Customer – This is pretty self-explanatory, but for the cheap seats, have a deep understanding of your customers’ wants and needs, behavior patterns, and communication preferences. Do not even attempt an eCRM program if you don’t have these basic details. Instead, take a step back and put initiatives into place that can help you gather these facts. Perhaps offer an incentive that requires users to answer a few… err… simple questions.

Data is King – When it comes to eCRM, data is King, Queen, and the whole royal court. Not only do you need the initial data detailed above at the onset, but you need to continue to collect data through a series of ‘push/pull’ communications with end users. Otherwise, your e-mails have no actionable purpose. (See ‘spam’ reference above.) Be sure to continue the conversation by gathering additional data points that will help further profile your users so that you can tailor key messages that will resonate with them specifically in driving your desired behavior. As you might have guessed, you’ll also need a strong call to action.

My Users Opted In and All I Got Was This Lousy Database – So, you’ve gathered some important details about your audience. And they’ve given you permission to communicate with them. Great. Now you’ve got to house the information somewhere. If you’re thinking database, give yourself a hearty pat on the back. Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner. You need to develop a solid infrastructure for collecting, segmenting and storing user information across multiple – and possibly overlapping – data points.

Step #3 is the crux of the program, and where most eCRM campaigns fail. In this particular case, ‘if you build it, they will come’ most definitely holds true. (Kevin Costner would be proud.) If you’ve built a database that can manage all of the various data points across your universe of users, and offers the ability to query by specific variable, you can send pertinent content that is only applicable to individual users; and hence, offers a greater propensity for achieving a buying conclusion by reaching users who are pre-disposed to your message or offer.

If there’s going to be a blizzard in Buffalo, you should be sending an e-mail about your state-of-the-art snow blower to users in that geographical region. Or if you’re going to be launching a new asthma treatment, you’ll want to extract all of the specialists like Pulmonologists and Otolaryngologists from your database so you don’t hit your OB/GYN docs or Podiatrists with an irrelevant message. (I’m being a tad hyperbolic, but you get the idea.)

And presto, voila, kazaam, a la peanut butter sandwiches [insert your magic word of choice here], you have the power to turn e-mail into “me-mail!” But you don’t have to be a magician to implement a successful eCRM program that will yield results and maximize the lifetime value of your customer. You just have to send communications that are specific to the ‘me’s’ in each member of your audience. And hey, we all know that people care most about themselves and what directly applies to them. So, you’re merely delivering on that. (I thought you’d all appreciate that I refrained from further flagrant use of ‘simply’ there. You’re welcome.)

In a nutshell, find out what your customers want, remember it (aided by super-human technological devices, of course) and give it to them.

Simply put (sorry, I couldn’t resist), give your customers what they want.

Ah, a truly groundbreaking concept.

Next up, the invention of the wheel.