Good question. Tricky answer.

I tend to follow the belief that social media works in three forms:

1. Socially – friend to friend
2. Promotionally -as a tool, in conjunction with an overarching promotional campaign
3. Proactively – a way to reach out, and build your brand

Let’s take a minute and go through each one of these, albeit at a high level.

Socially

This one is pretty self-explanatory. Essentially, social media works great for friends to connect with other friends, exchange notes, and share photo’s. At it’s root, this is what social media is all about. And it works brilliantly this way. The tricky part, is how does a brand insert itself into this picture, and leverage the potential opportunity successfully. Hopefully, that makes a little more sense in the next two points.

Promotionally

I think this is where social media really gets it’s best use, from a brand perspective. When used as a communication tool, in conjunction with online advertising and marketing initiatives – geared towards a given objective – social media provides a solid foundation to insert ourselves into our consumers’ lives (in an non-salesy way).

Proactively

Whether you’re a brand looking to field nasty “tweets” (a la Comcast), provide information (like Wachovia), or a sports figure looking to provide inside information to your fans (@martinhavlat), social media provides a bedrock of opportunity. You’ve got a quick way to access key segments of your target audience, and speak to them directly, in a casual environment.

The point here, is that social media isn’t a tool to make money. Rather, it’s a tool that poses as a doorway into the lives of consumers. When used properly, as in the points mentioned above, it can prove to be a highly valuable piece, to a rather complex puzzle.

Or maybe we’re talking about social media campaigns, and worrying about the number of friends, or followers of our associated Twitter profiles, Facebook Fan pages, etc. We get so caught up in these numbers, that we forget one simple thing…

Those numbers are created by people just like us. In some cases, we’re one of those numbers being tabulated.

How do you respond to a banner ad? When was the last time you were wowed by an email campaign? What was the last website you visited that was simply intuitive, and gave you exactly what you wanted, while delivering a glowing user experience? That’s what I thought. What about what the user wants?

The facts say it all: less than 0.05% of banner ad are ever clicked, and email click rates measure in the low single digits. The moral? People don’t want to be spoken to, they want to be talked with.

Our goal, as marketers and advertisers alike, should be to engage our audience, excite them to act, and provide them with memorable experiences, rather than to gimmick them into our way of thinking, or hand out short-term incentives to complete a form. To be clear, my point isn’t that any of these methods – okay, aside from banners maybe – are bad, but that we need to approach them differently. We need to utilize them differently. And we need to measure their effectiveness differently.

Next time you take a look at these reports, pay attention to things like referrals, average time on site, requests for information, and social mentions. Take a look at organic site traffic, from people who are sharing you with their friends. Why these numbers? Because they represent engagement, traction, and stickiness. Just like us, our visitors/users/customers/guests want to be engaged, and rewarded for action. We should be looking for ways to do just that.

I can’t help but agree with the statements made in this video. Indeed social media is more than a fad, rather it’s a complete paradigm shift in how we as human beings communicate with one another, and it’s here to stay.

I’ve mentioned it before, and I’ll mention it again: social media gives us a way to communicate and share, that has never been possible previously. Now more than ever, technology has enabled us to quickly and easily share our thoughts with the world, and instantly have that conversation with a limitless number of people. And it makes sense for it to happen this way. All day ever day, we’re faced with advertising, we use products, and we ask questions. The social sphere has just given us a way to make the conversation happen in real time, with people we know (or don’t know) rather than requiring we turn to Google for the answers.

What does this mean to you? Like it or not, social media isn’t going anywhere. And if you happen to be one of those that fears the potential repercussions of “the conversation”, it’s important to know that whether you’re part of the conversation or not, it’s still being had. If that’s not enough to convince you, perhaps this except from the aforementioned article will:

Although the brand mentions were a mix of positive and negative, associate professor at PSU Jim Jansen said that, surprisingly, “a lot of the brand comments were positive.” He went on to measure the influence of micro-blogging as compared to other media channels: “It may be right up there with e-mail in terms of its communication impact.”

Advertisers and their agencies have long wondered whether current research methodologies, that focus on asking respondents questions about commercials or advertisements, force overly-logical, or critical responses, while neglecting emotional or sub-conscious responses.

Martin Lindstrum, author of “Buy-ology” and others, have attempted to look beyond the conscious brain into the actual electro-chemical activity within the brain/body to determine what really motivates human behavior. I’ve attached links to Lindstrum’s YouTube video and those of three other companies below. If you are interested in the role of emotion and the sub-conscious in advertising and brand decision-making, I think you’ll enjoy them.

Buy.ology by Martin Lindstrom

Michael Brammer, consultor in Neuromarketing

Coke “Heist” Commercial Analysis

However, with Bing and Yahoo! partnering up, the paid search landscape is changing. I, for one, am a fan of competition and the leverage it gives to the customer. Witness my customer service experience with XM/Sirius this week. I’ve been an XM subscriber for a number of years and needed an issue resolved. If I wasn’t going to get satisfaction, I was going to switch to Siri . . . wait a minute, what am I going to do if I don’t get my issue resolved? Return to terrestrial radio and morning DJs? I think not. And now I have no leverage. Nice.

Anyway, my point (and yes, I do have one) is that the impact of the Bing+Yahoo! partnership is going to mean some changes for the “Googlopoloy,” and how we plan our paid search programs. But, the partnership is reported to be pretty complicated and, thus, still a ways off.

Now, I wouldn’t say that it has ever felt like Google throws its weight around in the paid search area. But, a little competition has to be a good thing. Right?

Read more about the Microsoft / Yahoo! partnership by clicking here.

In his article, Carnet refers to the following five rules:

1. Appeal to what people love the most – themselves
2. Measurement is very important, but don’t lose the forest for the trees
3. Plan for success, but know you won’t always hit homeruns
4. What they are saying is true; Social media is about conversations
5. Know thy customer

Now, on the surface I imagine these five points probably seem obvious, however the part that really got me was this:

Learn how to foster deeper and more balanced and committed relationships. Stop trying to bribe and manipulate people to get them to do what you want. This is transactional behavior. Be open to new forms of value. Properly engaged customers buy from a company not just because they like the product or service, but because they genuinely want the business to be successful.

Think on that for just a second. Thanks to the power given to us – and to consumers – via the birth of social media, we can no longer rely on gimmicky give-aways to encourage consumer behavior. These methods are old and tired. In large part, this is due to expectations being different than they used to be. Consumers expect to be able to reach out to brands and people easily and quickly via Facebook, or MySpace, or Twitter, or any other handful of socially-focused online communities. And once connected, they expect to be engaged, and valued as a “follower”.

We can do this in any number of ways, though I’d point to some rather excellent cases by Burger King, Dunkin’ Donuts, and Target. These brands gave followers the ability to interact with them, and the chance to get something in return, while reaping the benefits of creeping into that individuals social network, and leveraging the power that is word of mouth.

Today, it’s about empowering consumers by giving them tools that allow them to beat your drum for you. Consumers are looking for ways to engage and interact with brands they value, and it is up to those brands to provide those individuals with the proper tools to do just that. Of course, this comes at a cost: brands that refuse to get involved in the conversation directly, run the risk of being lost in the noise, or even worse, allowing others to manage their conversation for them.

We have two options: sit idly by and be passed over by the masses, or dive in head first and lead the conversation. Where do you sit?