In Engage!, I review the important catalysts and methodologies defining the new era of Social CRM or sCRM. In the discussion, I also introduce the idea of SRM (social relationship management), a concept that may at first blush, seemingly appear to introduce yet another acronym or perhaps challenge the promise of sCRM. However, its only intention is to spur thinking beyond the literal frameworks of traditional customer relationship management, whether it’s social or one-way.

Much of this chapter was cut as the book was already well over its target word count. As it’s an important topic, I’ve reassembled the pieces into a two-part series to spark useful conversation and innovation around the subject.

At a minimum, SRM focuses beyond the social customer and escalates the promise and potential of sCRM across an entire organization, not just customer service. Equally, SRM zooms in to evaluate the various stages of decision making and the channels and people that influence outcomes.

The Culture Shift: CRM to sCRM

If we look at CRM and the methodologies and technologies that support customers today, social CRM represents much more than a modernization or even socialization of an aging system of support and service.

I believe that among the chief attributes of social media, the ability to identify active communities of relevance, trace channels and voices of influence, and also discern and dissect the various stages of decision making, all in real-time, is nothing short of profound and transformational.

Information is becoming commoditized. Conversations, sentiment, inquiries, and intentions are vocalized and open for organization, categorization, and analysis. Our newfound sense of hearing is there for the benefit of learning. Accordingly, adaptation will be the key to earning relevance in our markets and this continuing practice of adaptation is how we will ultimately establish prominence.

This is easier said than done of course.

The culture that prevails within businesses today actually works against the pillars of socialized CRM. As such, everything begins with change and the compelling case to do so. While social media has traveled a great distance from our personal exploration to our profession endeavors, this unstructured groundswell has forced a bottom-up revolution led by us, the social champions who believe that the customer should once again, come first.

Eventually however, we hit a ceiling where the effects of championing change are met with challenge and skepticism. This opposition is natural, as the energy and persuasion necessary to break through the ceiling and impact the entire organization from the top-down, requires much more than enthusiasm.

Before businesses can collaborate within their communities, they first have to learn how to collaborate internally.

As Charlene Li points out in her new book Open Leadership, organizational transformation is only truly attainable through the willingness of leaders to embrace a change of course, act, and do so without having all of the answers. But, neither Charlene nor I endorse changing for the sake of change, nor do I suggest that we take any steps blindly. Instead, I believe in the power of data and as such, I rely on the real-time social information that visualizes impact, influence, sentiment, and opportunities.

Research, analysis, and insight offer clarity and direction. When combined with recommendations for process enhancement and ultimately compelling forecasts, we can then begin to demonstrate the ability to increase customer acquisition, retention, sales, and market share overall. This is the only language, for the time being, that seems to resonate with executives.

Introducing the Mantra of SRM

The premise of SRM is that the Social Web is distributing influence beyond the customer landscape, allocating authority amongst stakeholders, prospects, advocates, decision makers, and peers.  The activities that govern each form the separation and distinction between customer acquisition, retention, and advocacy. I believe at the heart of sCRM methodologies, the recognition that customers are only part of the new equation, sets the stage for long-term and advantageous change.

Every day, customers and prospects are faced with making decisions and the paths that they take are increasingly open to input. People are not only taking to the social Web for options, research, and recommendations, the insight they receive is derivative of the experiences and observations of others.

We reap what we sow.

This is why the concept of SRM shatters the boundaries set forth by CRM and the prevailing methodologies that inspire the progression towards sCRM.

Again, the idea of SRM recognizes that whether someone recommended, purchased, or simply recognized a product or service publicly each makes an impact on behavior at varying levels.

In the realm of SRM, influence is distributed. If we define influence as the ability to inspire action and measure the corresponding activity, the socialization of influence now expands beyond the strategies and software that organize and optimize customer relations and the management processes that govern it.

The entire organization needs to socialize and optimize in order to affect decisions and earn relevance.

Dr. Natalie Petouhoff formerly of Forrester Research called for sovereignty through jurisdiction in her post, Who Should Lead the Customer Social Media Interaction:

“The best strategy for a company is always to have everyone do what they do best. That’s why the various functions departments got created”

Customer service, combined with participation and engagement, forms a powerful foundation of marketing without blatant marketing. And, as the socialization of our business is introduced through open leadership, engagement brings into focus the fifth “P” of the marketing mix – people.

Indeed, this is about people and the recognition of influence wherever and however it takes shape. Equally, this is about relations and relationships. As such, we need principles, guidelines, processes, and systems to identify and engage in relevant communities and corresponding activity to trigger, cultivate and harness the rewards for paying attention and connecting.

This is just the beginning. The road to SRM is rich with insight and it affects the entire organization and in turn, the ability to impact decisions.

The headline is shared mostly in jest, but this topic is one worthy of serious attention. The question at hand is whether or not the general advice shared in popular blogs and books when designed to be snappy, shareable, and consumable, help or hinder the ability to learn critical and important lessons in social media.

I recently read a post by Alan Maites that used an article that I wrote for AdAge as the nexus for an industry-wide quest to seek answers for specific marketing challenges and ambitions. Chris Syme also continued the discussion.

There was a line in Maites’ post that resonated with me and serves as the inspiration for this discussion,

There’s nothing here that addresses the special circumstances that can make social media difficult for marketers to use.

Obviously, a guide on style and persona is not intended to address special circumstances on how to make social media easier for marketers. However, herein lies the essence of the frustration many share, including me – the ongoing need to discover useful direction, answers, how to’s, and guidance.

Advice is a commodity, but usable, not practical, instruction is scarce.

While his counsel to help marketers find solace is to “Google it,” I would like to take the opportunity to forward the discussion.

My advice? Reduce the weight you place on the social media guidance and examples that are universal, as they won’t apply to the specific circumstances or context of your challenges, opportunities, and market dynamics. Use them solely for inspiration, but not as templates for your endeavors.

It’s Time to Write Your Own Success Stories

We can’t assume that the lessons and successes we study are motivated by planning, calculation, and purpose. Many of those experimenting online today do so with more resolve than strategy. Creating a profile on Twitter, blogging, and introducing brand pages on Facebook are rudimentary. Mapping social media capabilities and corresponding objectives that contribute to the common goals of any organization require vision, creativity, and business acumen that are vastly absent from Google’s search results.

The only resolution to help you begin your path to learning lies in the questions you ask and answer yourself.

The sentiment shared by Alan and others is not at all wrong. It’s exactly right. When I started to write Engage!, I too, couldn’t find meaningful advice or instruction that I felt would apply to a majority of the organizations that face distinct challenges. And at 300 pages, it makes no apologies for the amount of information within, as there really are no shortcuts.

I spend every day experimenting with new media in marketing, advertising, communications, media, business, service, and I can assure you, that there is no “top 10 guide to do X” that will apply across the board. I answer my own questions in every case I work on and I share much of “how to get those answers” in everything I write.

Self Empowerment Leads to Self Actualization

Any program tied to templates will perform as such.

For example, I recently met with a handful of small businesses as part of a Citibank initiative to help companies get started in social media. It was very different than anything I write or read, and in each case, the steps they would take the next day shared very little in terms of execution. When you really peel back the layers of specific business objectives and how to attain them against unique market conditions, the questions and answers that surface bear little resemblance from business to business.

I’m a champion of self-empowerment and the only replicable process that I’ve discovered that consistently works in new media, is the necessity to gather, interpret and implement insight into programming that matches the dynamics and challenges of the matter at hand – one company or one objective at a time. It is the only way to evolve from where we are today to the level of expertise we so often seek from others.

The truth is that experts, whether it’s social media or any field for that matter, are inspired by possibilities, but proven through experience and the ongoing quest to transform theory into practice. The more seasoned experts will also have figured out how to establish business metrics and in turn, design campaigns that map to objectives.

It’s this process of asking and answering questions that forms the framework for how and what to measure in order to capture everything necessary for KPIs, ROI, and also action that has a pre-defined impact on any effort. But you can’t measure what you don’t know to track. You can’t start if you don’t know what questions to ask. I believe that programs inspired by insight, data, and business-caliber goals (before you start experimenting) set the foundation for a program that might share some attributes with many of the “how to’s” that are out there, but are unique in their content, context, execution, support, and measurement – and that’s the point.

Much of the information online is helpful for inspiring creativity and direction. But, it’s up to each one of us to get the answers through the hard work necessary to see how any of this applies to our unique challenges and opportunities that face us today and tomorrow. We have to become the very experts in our space that we once sought to answer our own questions.

Our works should focus on empowerment, placing the responsibility of leadership and direction directly on us. The real opportunity lies in our ability to teach individuals to become self-sufficient.

Sometimes it’s easier to think outside the box, when there isn’t a box to begin with…

Touchpoints serve as the point of contact between a buyer and a seller. As the race to socialize commerce escalates, these touchpoints represent the nodes that define the human network, connecting people across the social Web and uniting them around common interests, themes, and movements.

While the technology to connect buyers and sellers on the social Web is universal, the architecture for true engagement is antiquated. Customers are flocking to the social web to not only connect with friends, family, and peers, but also the brands that attract their attention. However, there is a tremendous disconnect between the volume of potential customers and the brands who truly understand how to find and more importantly, how to establish mutually beneficial connections with them.

The roadblocks that contribute to the absence of traffic on the bridges built between consumers and brands are trivial once brands understand the dynamics of social engineering and the allure of content in order to stimulate transactions.

Everything starts with an acute awareness of where existing and potential customers are discovering and sharing information today combined with a genuine appreciation for what moves them. The moment we have the insight necessary where to construct our presences, we can then engage with influencers, peers, and consumers based on a transparent foundation of contributing value, direction and resolution to each interaction.

According to research conducted by ForeSee, the opportunity for online retailers is profound. In the 2010 Social Media Report, ForeSee observed that 60% of online shoppers already use social media sites and networks regularly. And, 56% of those online shoppers friend or follow retailers, but they can only do so, if the retailer is actively engaging within those networks. The study found that only one-fourth of the top 100 e-tailers (e-retailers) has yet to create a Facebook page.

ForeSee found that of all the social networks frequented by online shoppers, Facebook consistently earned the top spot.

56% of online shoppers frequented Facebook, followed by YouTube at 22%. MySpace, believe it or not, ranked third with 15% and actually edged out Twitter by 4%.

However, pay attention to the real opportunity. While existing users are important, over 30% reported that they do not use social sites…at least not yet.

If only 25% of the top 100 online retailers maintains a Facebook page and with Facebook ranking as the most active network among online shoppers, the following data should be more than enough to change 2010 marketing plans posthaste.

Over 60% of consumers follow one-to-five brands online with another 21% following six-to-ten.  10% actually reported following 11-20 brands and 8% stated that they follow over 20 of their favorite products and services.

What motivates them?

Affinity and allegiance are of course among reasons for following brands, but as documented late last year, consumers are also motivated by receiving invitations for events, special offers or promotions.

For those skeptics who have yet to allocate funds and resources to engaging customers and prospects in social networks, perhaps this information will erode suspicion.

Your customers ultimately will engage with their favorite brands where and when possible, but eventually, your absence will eventually contribute to the insignificance of the brand as competitors will ultimately step in and capture the attention and loyalty of the very people you need to reach.

This research is testament to the rapid evolution of customer acquisition, retention, as well as defining the new landscape for advocacy.

Connect with Brian Solis on Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Google Buzz, Facebook

In September 2008 at Web 2.0 Expo in New York, I shared something that many, to this day, believe to the contrary, “There is no such thing as viral marketing.”

The declaration was empathetic in its direction to those marketers who have been on the receiving end of directives instructing them to create and unleash viral content. In parallel, the statement was aimed at those decision makers who assign such projects.

Content, no matter how brilliant, creative, abstract, or controversial, is not inherently viral. Yet, we’re asked repeatedly to create viral videos, posts, and other social objects that will trigger an endless array of retweets, pages and profiles that immediately attract fans and followers accompanied by a deafening wall of sound propelled by word of mouth.

Content doesn’t make something viral; people are the primary source of powering social objects across the attention nodes that connect the human network.

Despite what appears commonsensical, we’re surprised when our brainchild doesn’t attract the views, attention, and circulation we believe it deserves.

The reality of social media is this, in the attention economy, information isn’t randomly discovered and broadly disseminated. It is strategically positioned to either appear when someone searches for a related keyword or it’s presented to someone manually and deliberately.

As individuals, we no longer find information, it finds us.

The same is true about social objects. We must create packaged content with social hooks that comprise the story we wish to tell and the action we hope to spark – whether it’s through video, text, images, badges, widgets, or apps. While there is no such thing as viral marketing in and of itself, marketing inspired to catalyze word of mouth (WOMM) is a bit more thoughtful and calculated in its approach and it usually seeks options in and around Social Media.

Good Ideas are Worth Sharing

Ideas represent change whose time has come…

At the heart of any campaign is an idea. And even though good ideas are worth sharing, in order to have any hope of going “viral,” social objects require sustenance and herding. Essentially, our job is to not only create the content, but also connect the dots for those individuals who can help us spread our story across first degree relationships defining social graphs (friends) and second-degree graphs linked by friends of friends and so on.

Social scientist Dan Zarrella has analyzed over the years, why ideas spread. In his research, he discovered common characteristics of contagious content, those elements prevalent in many popular memes, whether organic or proactively marketed.

Seeds

The first group of individuals who are exposed to the idea/social object determine the extent and reach of the meme. These “seeds” are often mistaken for built-in audiences, for example, Twitter followers, Facebook Fans, blog subscribers, email lists, etc. The true opportunity for extending the lifespan and audiences for ideas is to carefully pick influential individuals who can spark activity and response. Early involvement, prior to anything being released, is key as is the definition of the role they will play in the roll out of the content.

Novelty

Distinctiveness is required for all transmittable ideas. Personal connections are also paramount. The personal motivation for sharing content is driven by how well something connects or resonates with the person exposed to it. Ideas connect initially because they’re relevant or personal. Other communicable emotions that factor into the motivation for sharing in a one-to-one model include:

1. Personal/Relevant/Timely

2. Humor

3. Utility

4. Relationship Building

5. Common Interests

6. Missing out

7. Conversations

8. Reciprocity

Association and Correlation

As Zarrella observes, intuitiveness is a key attribute for determining the likelihood for pass alongs. If someone can’t understand an idea, they simply will disregard it and move on. And in the era of the real-time Web, we move too quickly to further analyze or interpret ideas. Its intention and purpose must be clear from the onset. And to be quite honest, it’s our job to create compelling objects worthy of connection. Data shows that you have three-to-five seconds to engage your viewer and in that time they’ve already decided to either continue and possibly share the idea or simply abandon it.

Relevance

In the attention economy, our focus is concentrated on what flows through our attention dashboards and we’re distracted at will as relevant content appears. As intelligent filtering tools are slowly emerging, human filtering still prevails. Through selective attention, we each possess the ability to tune out the volume of information that relentlessly attempts to lure our focus. Relevance is key to encouraging someone to take the time to purposely share content with those they know.

It is the art and science of creating content that appeals to people individually and also as groups of shared interests. This is why social media is social in the first place.

People connect with individuals who share their passions, interests, and ambitions. Designing social objects based on the psychographics rather than demographics of those you wish to reach and inspire, proves critical in the viability of engendering personal connections – connections worthy of sharing.

Utility

Give someone a fish; you have fed them for today. Teach them how to fish; and you have fed them for a lifetime…

While much of the content examples we hear and see so often are aimed at short bursts of entertainment, creating and distributing helpful content is contagious in its own right. Help me answer or ask a question. Help me find a reason to participate. Give me a voice. Help me do something I couldn’t do before I came into contact with your social object.

The idea of integrating utility or resolution into social objects increases the sharability of content while also increasing its lifespan.  Continually introducing useful content sets the foundation for invaluable relationships based on the theory of social exchange – those connected will grow with one another based on the ongoing exchange of ideas sparked by objects and conversations that flourish over time.

Social Influence – A Cascading Effect

Tying back to the importance of initial and repeated seeding, peer-to-peer influence sets the stage for perception, urgency, and also weaves the fabric that wraps us with a sense of exclusivity and inclusion. By aligning with those individuals who are recognized as leaders, trendsetters and authorities, an ambiance is established that carries with it the lure for affinity, belonging, and association, inviting individuals to “join the club” simply by viewing and sharing.

The reward for these influencers is that they’re perceived to stay ahead of trends. It’s rare when you see someone of this stature join later in the game. They’re usually on the prowl for the next undiscovered object that when disseminated, reinforces their reputation as an early adopter.

An element of wisdom of the crowds is also at play in the realm of social influence. There is an allure, an unspoken emanation of prestige when a group of people surround and react to content and objects. After all, if a person possesses crowds of qualified followers, readers or if a particular bit of content earns significant views, reactions, retweets, shares, and likes, then it has earned a state of prominence that begets validation. Communities literally form around objects and in doing so, they influence the actions of participants and spectators, now and over time.

Social objects should thus be supported before and during their release to garner attention, support, followers, and influential activity.

Information Voids

In the absence of truth or information, speculation fuels hearsay, which in turn sparks movement and ultimately gains momentum as new voices attempt to answer questions through conjecture. I refer to the introduction of an event or object as the information divide, the difference between the moment information is introduced into the social web and the time it takes to verify its accuracy. Therefore I ask, is content or context king in the real-time web? The same can be said for word of mouth marketing.

When information is intentionally missing or it’s positioned cleverly to incite speculation, social objects can spread across incredibly vast networks at blinding speeds. When BMW, for example, introduced its 1-Series, it did so through a video documentary (mockumentary) entitled “The Ramp” or “Rampenfest,” which chronicled a filmmaker’s visit to a small village where the town rallied around a record breaking attempt to launch a 1-Series BMW over the Atlantic. In doing so, BMW intentionally steered viewers towards wonderment. Was it really an attempt to cross the Atlantic? Was BMW behind this video? With every new question, more viewers and shares ensued.

Today, visiting Rampenfest.com takes you directly to the BMW 1-Series home page.

Experiences Cause Action

Social objects engender experiences. The difference between the failure and success of a meme is directly rooted in the resulting activity that they’re intended to cause. Perhaps the most powerful characteristic of social objects is their ability to masquerade as catalysts that carry cause and effect.

Strategic marketers will calculate what happens after the initial view and resulting share.

They’ll define the complete series of meaningful steps and then reverse engineer the process to design content that delivers a complete and directed experience.

Content can carry with it the ability to raise awareness and also incite change. It is done by appealing to the very people who align around the subject and in order to convince them, these social objects must carry personal and emotional messages that connect with the hearts and minds of participants. Affinity is driven by emotions, exacting the essence that inspires someone to support something they believe in and fusing it with the passions of others who also share in the mission. If the intention is supported through the content and as such, designed to further action, meaningful connections are then forged and replicated. We are after all, attempting to make human connections and they are, to say the least, priceless.

This is social media and word of mouth marketing with a purpose. And, it’s the most powerful form of engagement I’ve practiced. When content connects with someone at a truly personal level, and explicitly asks them to participate and share, wonderful things come to life. I would say that the Pepsi Refresh Project is among those campaigns that connect people, ideas, emotions all while furthering the sentiment and support towards the Pepsi brand and the ideas and people orbiting it.

Sharing the Spotlight

Among the most powerful forms of galvanization is that of recognition and reciprocity.

Movements can and should feature the very voices of those who can power the spreading of ideas. Providing them with a platform where they can voice their thoughts and views among vested audiences who can celebrate contribution is empowering and rewarding to brands and equally to participants. Social Media is powered by people and its future is dependent on how we not only consume content, but also invest in its significance and relevance.

In Nokia’s recent experiment in the UK, the company erected the world’s biggest signpost to visually demonstrate and promote GPS functionality. The sign featured the locations of those individuals who sent information directly to the sign, and in turn, the information was shared via the sign’s Twitter account. It’s personal and gratifying as Nokia places you and me at the center of the experience.

Sharing isn’t Caring, It’s Furthering an Idea

Ideas are worthy of sharing, when there is incentive to do so. The incentive isn’t always rooted in rewards however, motivation can simply stem from a reaction – a smile, an email, an emoticon, credit, etc. This sharing transpires in the social communities where relationships are entwined and as such, social objects are most effective when they integrate sharing mechanisms designed to simplify the process of dissemination. AddtoAny recently studied the networks where sharing ideas and content and corresponding dialogue tended to concentrate.

At 400 million strong, Facebook is by far the most active of all social networks, eclipsing email by more than 2x. And, even though email is second to Facebook at the moment, Twitter is in a draft position.

The point is that without the inclusion of one-click sharing capabilities, combined with planned syndication strategies, the reach of our content is restricted even before it’s introduced.

To that end, Zarrella also studied the effect of the word “video” on sharing within Facebook and Twitter. His observations were interesting indeed and actually make the case to consider focusing efforts on Facebook.

Stories that contained videos were shared more on Facebook than that of the average story. On Twitter, Tweets that included the word video were shared less than the average story. Zarrella believed that the Facebook platform is conducive for sharing as it enables the embedding of multimedia content where as Twitter requires an outbound link.

The Epitome

In a recent post in SearchEngineLand, Jordan Kasteler shared the seven types of sharing motives:

1. Self Expression

2. Affinity

3. Validation

4. Prurience

5. Status Achievement

6. Altruism

7. Self-serving interests

While there are many published formulas designed to help you make your social objects “go viral,” nothing is more important than…

1. Creating content that’s relevant

2. Identifying the tastemakers and influencers who will help us reach the right audiences

3. Involving them in the process before the campaign is officially introduced – seeding

4. Striking a chord with the person they’re trying to compel – making an emotional connection

5. Encouraging them to share it with their contacts

6. Rewarding them for doing so

7. Defining the action we wish viewers to take after the engagement

8. Providing them with a forum for self-expression

9. Recognizing all of those who helped us

10. Connecting everyone together for future engagement

The strategies, examples and supporting data are only minimized when we view them as ingredients to a recipe of viral marketing. Doing so underestimates the value of the roles people play in the spreading of ideas and practically dehumanizes overall experiences.

When we introduce social objects, our ability to create, connect, and define experiences around these information and idea catalysts defines whether we earn the attention we feel we deserve or we savor the collaboration we engendered through design.

Reflecting on the words of good friend Hugh MacLeod, the three keys to social media marketing, or marketing in general, are as simple as they are profound…

1. Figure out what your gift is, and give it to them on a regular basis.

2. Make sure it’s received as a real gift, not as an advertising message

3. Then figure out exactly what it is that your trail of breadcrumbs leads back to.

I don’t believe in viral marketing, but I do believe in the socialization of relevant ideas and information when connected to the right people, in the right places, with genuine and pre-defined intent.

Connect with Brian Solis on Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Google Buzz, Facebook
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In 2007 Charlene Li, then at Forrester Research, now running the Altimeter Group, along with Forrester ’s Josh Bernoff, Remy Fiorentino, and Sarah Glass released a report that introduced us to Social Technographics.  Forrester’s research segmented participation behavior on the social web into six categories, visualized through a ladder metaphor with the rungs at the high end of the ladder indicating a greater level of participation.

Social Technographics were designed to help businesses engage in social media with a more human approach, catering to individuals where, when, and how they are participating and contributing to the social Web. According to Forrester research…

Many companies approach social computing as a list of technologies to be deployed as needed – a blog here, a podcast there – to achieve a marketing goal.  But a more coherent approach is to start with your target audience and determine what kind of relationship you want to build with them, based on what they are ready for. Forrester categorizes social computing behaviors into a ladder with six levels of participation; we use the term “Social Technographics” to describe analyzing a population according to its participation in these levels. Brands, Web sites, and any other company pursuing social technologies should analyze their customers’ Social Technographics first, and then create a social strategy based on that profile.

The hierarchy was presented as follows:

Creators, those who publish web pages, blogs and other social objects – 13%

Critics, individuals who comment on blogs or post ratings and reviews – 19%

Collectors, those who use RSS and/or tag Web pages – 15%

Joiners, people who are active in social networks – 19%

Spectators, content consumers who read blogs, watch user-generated videos, and listen to podcasts – 33%

Inactives – 52%

2007

Over the years, the Social Technographics ladder evolved, with the numbers growing and shifting as social media grew in prominence among mainstream users. In January 2010, Forrester’s Josh Bernoff released an update to the popular Social Technographics ladder to visualize and categorize the current state of how consumers participate in the social Web. As you can see, behavior shifted upward in droves, in some cases doubling the level of engagement within roles that define social experiences. The definitions have also evolved to better reflect the online activity of today’s socialites.

Creators
2007 – 13%
2010 – 24%

Critics
2007 – 19%
2010 – 37%

Collectors
2007 – 15%
2010 – 20%

Joiners
2007 – 19%
2010 – 59%

Spectators
2007 – 33%
2010 – 70%

Inactives
2007 – 52%
2010 – 17%

2010

This year, Forrester observed notable activity that warranted the creation of a new rung on the Technographics ladder, one that earned a top position just below Creators. According to Forrester, America is increasingly becoming a nation of social chatterboxes. A recent Forrester survey that polled more then 10,000 consumers shows that one in every three online Americans is a “conversationalist” – someone who updates their status in the statusphere (any social network with an update window) at least once per week. Conversationalists represent 33% of today’s online social behavior.

The survey identified the people behind the category, with 56% of conversationalists representing the highest concentration of women in any social group. And, 70% of this group were 30 years or older.

Again, the goal of Social Technographics was not only to classify individual participation in social media, but also to encourage the design and segmentation of focused marketing, branding, and engagement programs that appeal to these respective groups.

Socialgraphics

The Altimeter Group believes that in order to effectively form ties that bind with social customers, businesses must genuinely understand the social behaviors of consumers. In January 2010, Charlene Li and company introduced us to Socialgraphics to serve the intelligence necessary to develop a social strategy based on a consumer-defined Engagement Pyramid. By personalizing the messages and the digital conduits between brands and markets, businesses evolve from a carpet bombing campaign that essentially marketed at faceless consumers using mediums that appealed to targeted demographics (characterized by age, income, gender, education, etc.) instead of psychographics (grouped by interest).

According to Altimeter, Socialgraphics asks several key questions that allow brands to focus and tailor resources on the very people that comprise each answer.

1. Where are your customers online?

2. What are your customers’ social behaviors online?

3. What social information or people do your customers rely on?

4. What is your customers’ social influence? Who trusts them?

5. How do your customers use social technologies in the context of your products?

In order to truly and effectively engage, we need to understand the behavior and categorization of our customer base. As such, Altimeter’s Engagement Pyramid focuses and ranks social behavior…

Curating – Heavily involved in online communities such as discussion boards, fan pages, and wikipedia through moderation, contribution, editing, etc. These curators contribute their time, energy, and perspective to improve the foundation for available information on a given subject.

Producing - Creates and publishes original content and social objects as a way of expressing expertise, positions, as well as contributing to the ecosystem of information those in the other categories seek to share thoughts and also make decisions.

Commenting - Responds to the content created by Producers. Even though they do not actively create and distribute original social objects, their activity is still influential to those around them.

Sharing – Individuals who actively update their status on social sites and upload/forward photos, videos, articles, etc. This behavior earns relevance and also demonstrates knowledge and awareness.

Watching - Content consumers who are seeking information in order to make decisions or learn from peers, or purely seeking entertainment.

Altimeter also maps the Engagement Pyramid to Twitter, as online behavior is unique to the culture and communication that define the Twitterverse.

Curating – #hashtag

Sharing/Producing – Tweet

Sharing – Re-tweet (RT)

Commenting – @reply

Watching – Read Tweets

Behaviorgraphics

Technographics and Socialgraphics humanize our markets, allowing us to better understand the activities and behaviors that will allow us to make informed decisions about how and where we communicate and to what extent. This is about engendering responses that are governed by unique touchpoints based on the placement of our customers within the respective pecking order of social participation.

Genuine engagement is inspired by the research and data we accumulate as we analyze the social web and the specific activity and people who define our markets and audiences. We are now required to tailor our stories and distribute them specifically in the channels that cater to the technographics and socialgraphics of our customers. In order to truly earn relevance and prominence within our communities, we also need to connect information and objects dictated by the personality traits of those influencers who in turn activate and move markets.

If Technographics and Socialgraphics represent the lines of communication from brand to market, Behaviorgraphics serve as the last mile between the medium and the specific person we’re hoping to reach.

Social beacons are the influential voices within social networks who act as the information catalysts to those around them. Chris Brogan and Julien Smith refer to this group as Trust Agents others refer to these individuals as tastemakers, influencers, trendsetters, and change agents. In the era of socialized media, we are now able to pinpoint these individuals and also learn, in real-time, what they’re seeking and to whom they’re connected. This is why Digital Anthropology and Sociology play such a pivotal role in the creation of engagement strategies and the content, objects, and channels we use to establish and cultivate relationships within social networks.

I spent the last several years observing the cultures, laws, behavior, hierarchy, and communication bridges in many social networks and one thing that I observed, is that influence is not universally bestowed upon or earned by any one type of person. Influence is distributed across segmented personality traits and categorized by the prominence within specific nicheworks linked by interests. Activating social networks and the people within them is an act of communication to form an association. Therefore, we must understand much more than how content attracts varying levels of behavior, but also surface the personality characteristics of the people we’re hoping to establish connections and relationships.

In many ways, we become social psychologists and linguists who can speak to individuals in manners that appeal to their demeanor. And, since each of us are also consumers, we find ourselves not in any one group, but at any point in time, we can identify with several traits based on our engagement in varying circumstances.

Introducing Behaviorgraphics…

Behaviorgraphics examines the “me” in Social Media. While it’s avatars that capture our attention, it’s personality that captures our heart and mind.

Social media tests the filter that divides inner monologue from disclosure. As our thoughts become words online, they color our avatars and profiles with a glimpse of our personality – who we are online and in the real world. Over time, it is how we put our words into action that establishes our character. And, it is our character, through the marriage of our words and actions that paves the way for relationships and opportunities.

Visualized once again, with the help of JESS3…

At the center is Benevolence – The unselfish and kindhearted behavior that engenders and promotes recognition and reciprocity, and in doing so, earns the goodwill of those around them. This is the hub of social networking with a purpose, mission, and a genuine intent to grow communities based on trust, vision, and collaboration.

Problem Solvers – One of the most common sources of conversations and updates in social media are questions…people seeking information in the hopes that commenters will respond with resolution or direction.

Commenters – Providing thoughts, opinions, observations, experiences, and sometimes, unfiltered reactions to the information shared online. They are less likely to produce original content, but are compelled to share their views based on the introduction of content by others in and around their social graph.

Researchers – Peer to peer influence is prominent in social networks and researchers rely on their social graphs for information and direction to make qualified decisions. They are also active in championing polls and surveys to truly learn about the thoughts and opinions of those connected to them.

Conversationalists – Participation in conversations through proactive updates seeking responses or direct responses to other content, conversationalists fuel threads within and across networks.

Curators – In the context of behaviorgraphics, curators carry a different role. This group works diligently to find and only share what captivates them as filtered by what they believe will interest their followers.

Producers – Among the more elite group of online participants, their stature is earned by the amount of content they generate within multiple networks.

Broadcasters – Social media is proving to be both an effective broadcast and conversational platform. Broadcasters are mostly one-way communicators who either intentionally or unintentionally push information to followers without injecting conversational aspects into the mix.

Marketers – Profiles dedicated to marketing ideas, products, or services and may or may not include content outside of their portfolio, unless the account is focused on funneling beneficial and value-added solutions to specific audiences regardless of origin.

Socialites – Individuals who have earned varying levels of weblebrity, these new internet famous personae earn recognition and attention in online networks which is increasingly spilling over in real world fame.

Self-promoters – Unlike broadcasters and marketers, self-promoters are unconcealed in their intentions through constant updating of activities, events, and accomplishments.

Egocasters – Contribute to the “ego” in the egosystem and represent the evolution of self-promoters. Through constant promotion and the activities and responses that ensue, promoters graduate to a position of perceived prominence and collective unawareness.  What they think and say is what they believe to be the reality for one and for all. They lose touch with perspective as listening gives way to telling…

Observers – Often referred to as inactives, lurkers, or simply consumers, Observers represent the majority of the social Web today, defined by those who read and also share information in the backchannel, including email, and also in the real world.

Social Climbers – Social capital is not only something that is earned in social networking, it is something that is proactively pursued by those whose sole mission is to rise to the top. These individuals intentionally climb ladders on the avatars, profiles, and social capital of others most often misrepresenting their purpose and stature to earn an audience based on disingenuous intentions.

TMI – The things some share in social media continue to blur the line between what’s relegated to inner monologue versus that for sharing with others in public. The state of sharing “Too much information” is dictated by those on the receiving end of the update, not those who publish it.

Spammers – Those accounts and profiles that are created to push messages blindly and without regard for those with whom they come into contact. Often times they’re tied to current events (using trending keywords or hashtags) or targeting influential voices to lure them into clicking through to their desired goal.

Leachers -Not included in the graph, but an important category to recognize as leachers take the good work of others and channel it into their own accounts almost exclusively for the sake of promoting their cause.

Complainers – When we love something, we tell a few people; when something bothers us, we tell everyone.  Complainers are often sharing their discontent as a primary ingredient in their social stream. And, as customer service takes to the social web, these complainers are only encouraged to share their experiences to achieve satisfaction and earn recognition for their role as the new social customer.

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Social networks share a common ingredient in design and intent, the connection of people and the facilitation of conversations, sharing, and discovery. What they do not share however, are culture, behavior, and prevailing demographics. Each network is unique in its genetic and cultural composition and it is for that reason that we benefit by becoming digital anthropologists in addition to new media marketers.

Demographics are distributed within all social networks, but only concentrated within a select few. Where specific demographics materialize varies from network to network and as such, the more effective social strategies and tactics are designed to reach target audiences where, when and how they engage.

Over the years, I’ve relied on Google Ad Planner to surface the critical demographics in order to construct meaningful and targeted social programming. Pingdom recently examined the data and packaged the results in a visually rich presentation worthy of sharing.

The study included 19 social networks…
Bebo
Classmates.com
Delicious
Digg
Facebook
FriendFeed
Friendster
Hi5
Last.fm
LinkedIn
LiveJournal
MySpace
Ning
Reddit
Slashdot
StumbleUpon
Twitter
Tagged
Xanga

Age Distribution

The disposition of age groups within social networking as a whole is representative of the state of social media engagement, but this is fleeting. Age groups will only continue to meander as online networking becomes pervasive. At the moment, we can see that those 35-44 dominate the social web, representing 25% of total participation. For those who have actively monitored adoption of social networks, this next stat might not come as a surprise, but it’s worth highlighting nonetheless. Following at 19% isn’t a younger generation at all, in fact, those 45-54 are the second most active group within social networks, just ahead of the 25-34 segment at 18%.  Individuals under 17 rank fourth with 15%. I find it fascinating that the 45 to 65+ group, those who are usually considered laggards in the technology adoption cycle, symbolize almost one-third of total users of social networks. They’re equally connecting with not only each other but also the younger generations who are spending an increasing amount of time online as well.

Distribution of Age Within Social Networks

Reviewing the age groups broadly across social media serves only as a primer to the deeper level of analysis required to identify exactly where we need to connect with target demographics. As such, Pingdom performed the first level of segmentation to showcase how age groups are distributed within each specific social network.

Bebo - Over 40% are 17 and under followed by 35-44 and 55-64 at just under 15% each

Classmates.com - The 45-54 dominate at just over 30% followed by 20% at 55-64 and just under 10% at 65+ (Represents the highest concentration of the older demographics with 78% over 35)

Delicious - Over 25% of users are 35-44

Digg – 35-44 constitute over 25% of the total user base followed by just under 20% at 25-34 (80% of users are over 25)

Facebook - ~25% of users are 45-54 with the 35-44 group at just 20% (61% are 35 or older)

FriendFeed – Shy of 40%, 35-44 represent the majority of users

Friendster - Polar opposites with 25% under 17 and roughly 20% 45-54

Hi5 - 25-34 collectively represent close to 30% of all users

Last.fm – Almost 20% are under 17 with the 35-44 category also representing just under 20%

LinkedIn – Less than 30% are 35-44, 20% are 45-54 and more than 15% are 55-64

LiveJournal -25-34 and 35-44 are tied at 20+% percent each

MySpace - Over 30% of all users are under 17 and slightly less than 20% are 45-54

Ning – 25% of 35-44 and over 60% are 35 and older

Reddit - 30% are 35-44

Slashdot – More than 30% are 35-44

StumbleUpon – The 35-44 segment symbolize just under 30% of all users followed by 25-34 at just under 20%

Twitter – More than 25% of users are 35-44, trailed by the 45-54 group at less than 20% (65% of all users are over the age of 35 with less than 20% representing the 24 and under age groups)

Tagged - Almost 30% are 45-54 and slightly over 25% are under 17

Xanga – Over 20% are under 17

Governing Age Groups

If we further review the data, we can see which age groups are dominant across the social Web

17 and under: 21%

18-24: 0%

25-34: 5%

35-44: 58%

45-54: 16%

55-64: 0%

65 and over: 0%

Average User Age by Network

Cascading further down stream, the data when crunched, reveals the average age per network, which allows businesses to better understand the general user within each.

Bebo – 28.4
Classmates.com – 44.9
Delicious – 41.3
Digg – 38.5
Facebook - 38.4
FriendFeed - 38.4
Friendster – 33.4
Hi5 – 33.5
Last.fm – 35.8
LinkedIn – 44.3
LiveJournal – 35.2
MySpace – 31.8
Ning – 37.8
Reddit – 37.4
Slashdot – 40.4
StumbleUpon – 38.5
Twitter – 39.1
Tagged – 34.4
Xanga - 32.3

In social media, not only do women rule, but it seems that the middle-aged are Social Media’s largest share holders.  Again, the average number is just that, a generalization of users classified by age, not by usage, theme, or connectivity. As we identify whom it is we need to reach and why, analyzing data as it relates to age groups is just one side of a multi-faceted program. In order to possess and convey value and meaning, it is anthropology, sociology and the psychographic mapping of people to themes, interests, and aspirations that will prevail now and over time. It’s the difference between visibility and presence, and in social media, presence is felt.

Connect with Brian Solis on Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Google Buzz, Facebook
—

In Part One, we focused on how to make your brand findable and shareable in social media. A white paper by Gigya validates the shift to, and resulting importance of, social search and its dependence on crowd participation. Online businesses must optimize in order to earn referral traffic from social networks.

With the advent of social feeds — a live stream of friends’ activity shared on social networks like Facebook and Twitter — consumers can more easily rely on trusted personal relationships to determine what’s worthwhile to read, watch, play and buy online.

Honestly, there are too many top 10 lists, and I subscribe to the Spinal Tap school of numeration, so this list will go to “11!” Here are 11 steps for optimizing your brand for sharing and social search.

1. Keywords

This one seems elementary and trivial for many, but it can’t go unsaid. Social media is inviting new players within marketing and communications to the table. Their absence from traditional SEO practices requires the review of all keywords that stakeholders use to find relevant information regardless of the platform or network.

2. Brands Become Media

Essentially, for brands to earn the attention of desired audiences their content must be timely, relevant, irresistible, and shareable. Content production is only part of the equation. Establishing a cadence to entice people to introduce our work to their friends and followers is atypical.

Begin by defining an editorial calendar to produce and distribute relevant content for each and every network with rhythm and conviction. In the era of real-time and social search, brands now become the CNN of their industry while also socializing the content and experience to broaden reach and awareness.

3. Define the Experience

Modernize and socialize your site to complement the experience visitors expect in 2010. Once someone is introduced to your content and they land on your site or landing page, make sure it’s presented in a gripping format and the proper hooks are in place for easy sharing back to the attention dashboards of their social graph. Many Web sites are still stuck in the time of Web 1.0 and essentially represent a static dead end to the dynamic and interactive experiences transpiring in social networks.

4. Establish a Formidable Presence

Go where your audiences are already highly active, and also where they’re experimenting. Create enticing, compelling, and personable social profiles in the networks of relevance that convey a sense of “what’s in it for me?” Establish relationships based on context and make sure those relationships are fortified through the production and distribution of value-added content, combined with the art and science of reciprocity, response, and recognition.

5. Social Media Optimization (SMO)

Optimize the site and all social objects for traditional, social, and real-time search based on the keywords that are defined in step one. Invest time and resources in the eloquence of describing and defining social objects through titles, descriptions, tags (keywords), links, and active content promotion. Create content in the methods dictated by the communities you wish to reach (e.g., blog posts, tweets, videos, pictures).

6. Social Search

Now that Google and other search engines are experimenting with the addition of social search into results, the fusion of sharing and social networking improves the likelihood of someone clicking through to our desired objects. Data shows that, in addition to e-mail, visitors who find content shareable choose to share it on Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, and MySpace.

7. Connect with Social Influencers

As attention spans continue to thin and as interesting content spins through attention dashboards at blinding speeds, brands must proactively connect relevant information to social beacons who can lend credibility and spark conversations and dialogue around the objects we introduce aligned by theme and context.

8. Employ the Human Algorithm

Google is already experimenting with a human algorithm of sorts for ranking real-time search results. The stature of one’s social capital ultimately contributes to the hierarchy, placement, and findability of the content and social objects we share online. Not only do we need to connect with social influencers to help us share our story, we also must identify and connect with individuals in the public stream and the back channel to ensure that the conversation generates ranked awareness.

9. Social Architecture:

Analyze how key individuals in your markets are discovering, consuming, and sharing content today and integrate one-click social functionality across all pertinent content platforms. Also, make sure to stay on top of the most promising trends because social sharing will continue to rapidly evolve.

Eradicate proprietary login systems and consider pervasive social logins, such as Facebook Connect and Twitter logins, as they’re designed to trigger social effects through reactions on the host site back to their respective social graphs. This extends the reach of content from a site that was once considered a destination to the networks of relevance in order to attract qualified visitors.

10. A Call to Action

Implementing calls to action remind someone that captivating content is worthy of sharing. Integrating the tools to instantly do so is one part; reminding them to do so completes the circle. However, sharing isn’t the end game either. Inciting responses in addition to sharing, such as posts, retweets, likes, etc, create paths that define and engender the experience you desire with destinations and calls to action integrated to close the loop.

Decide the activity you wish to inspire and integrate it into steps one through nine. Give them something to find and to talk about!

11. Listen and Adapt

Create listening dashboards to monitor all activity including the number of shares, discoveries, click-throughs, etc., and find ways to improve the experience, as well as how to ignite a greater volume of sharing.

If the socialization of content is defined by governing behavior, it is that of sharing and searching. The share economy currency is defined by likes, links, retweets, updates, comments, shares on Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz, MySpace, et al.

The potential and overall impact of social objects, either discovered or shared, only expands the reach of the brand as social media becomes pervasive. Providing the necessary means for individuals to not only find your content, but also actively share it across the social Web, is paramount to the survival of businesses in the era of curated search, social influence, and channeled attention.

Originally posted in Search Engine Watch.

Connect with Brian Solis on Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Google Buzz, Facebook

Search isn’t an isolated experience. The act of looking for information is now fused with validation, which means the socialization of search will unite discovery with context and relationships. It all begins with where we purposely search for relevant content and also where we respond to interesting information that crosses our path.

ComScore’s most recent search engine ranking report offers new insight that will make us rethink how we publish content, increase its findability, and facilitate sharing.

In comparing February to January, Google remained on top with 65.4 percent of all core search activity. Yahoo followed with 17 percent and Microsoft ranked third with 11.3 percent.

Things become interesting when we analyze search queries as opposed to core search activity. The landscape broadens beyond traditional search.

Just behind Google, but ahead of Yahoo, YouTube ranks second for search inquiries overall. In 18th and 19th place, Facebook and MySpace also make appearances in the top 20 list respectively. Perhaps most intriguing is that neither Facebook nor MySpace offer true search functionality — but they still account for increasing search activity. Facebook is up 10 percent between January and February.

What does this all mean? As social networks gain in prominence, the amount of relevant information within each ecosystem increases in value and, as such, we deliberately seek content within the networks in which we engage.

It’s the Journey That’s Important, Not the Destination

Destination sites across the board are losing traffic and ultimately favor, simply because destinations are obsolete as intended or designed. The days of the traditional “start page” are coming to an end, only to be replaced with the “attention dashboard” — a dedicated application that aggregates the activity of those we follow in social networks into a series of digestible streams.

TweetDeck, PeopleBrowsr, Seesmic, HootSuite, Brizzly, and Facebook each represent a new generation of attention dashboards as they funnel social feeds into one clickable view. These streams look a lot like slot machines as information flies through dedicated columns, almost blurring the text beyond legibility. But this is where attention is focused and the content that appears within it represents the future of the information life cycle.

So how do we compete for attention if attention itself is learning how to adapt to a new media landscape?

Our job is to ensure that information travels outside of our domains and to the communities of interest in order to create a bridge back to our hub. And, content must adapt based on consumption and sharing patterns with our existing and potential stakeholders.

This is an important point and one that can’t be ignored. Social activity indicates that we are already moving away from the act of proactively traveling to traditional sites as a source of new content.

With the dawn of social media, the activity that brings social graphs and networks to life is quickly changing how we discover, learn and share and it is also forever reshaping the idea of online destinations as they exist today. It all comes down to attention and understanding where it’s focused and how it is tempted, lured, or distracted to click away from it.

The socialization of information is changing everything.

Connect with Attention Where Attention is Focused

Competing for attention is paramount. We lose most of the battles before they’re begun because we’re working against years of behavior that now represent the complete opposite of tomorrow’s consumption and sharing patterns.

Everything begins with identifying where attention is focused, combined with the new laws of attraction.

Gigya reviewed data from Compete from November 2009 and observed that some of the top media properties were already realizing a dominant effect in traffic from social networks. For example, USAToday receives upwards of 35 percent of its referral traffic from social networks and just over 6 percent from Google. People Magazine receives 23 percent of its referrals from social networks and 11 percent from Google. And, CNN earns 11 percent of its referral traffic from social versus 9 percent from Google.

Peer-to-peer activity strongly influences the resulting behavior of impressionable nodes defining social graphs, much in the same way we rely upon trusted referrals from our real life contacts. The more something appears within the attention dashboard, the more likely it is that someone will click through. In addition, the more intriguing it seems, or the stronger the reaction it engenders among peers, also increases its enchantment and thus beguiling spectators to willfully lunge towards a shared experience, most likely triggering a public response that continues the social effect.

Social Architecture and Connecting the Dots

Information is already socializing and changing the behavior for how people search, find, react, and curate. The difference between our present and future is defined by the roads and bridges we build between relevance and prevalence.

As content producers, our responsibility is to connect information and stories to existing and potential stakeholders. It’s also essential to package and optimize our content as social objects in order for them to work for us in our absence, when individuals actively seek content through contextual searches.

In part two, we’ll look at 11 steps for optimizing your brand for sharing and social search.

Originally posted in Search Engine Watch.

Connect with Brian Solis on Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Google Buzz, Facebook

An overnight success ten plus years in the making, Social Media is as transformative as it is evolutionary. With every day that passes, we are presented with increasing reports that showcase the impact of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and blogs within small and large businesses alike. As a result, we can now visualize the state of adoption, understanding, and implementation in different business ecosystems. What we realize as a result, is that individual examples vary based on the assorted stages of aptitude and proficiency in Social Media within each company.

In writing the next book, I interviewed many executives and marketing and service professionals as well as reviewed piles of case studies. I noticed that the path towards new media enlightenment was directed by the conditions of their respective market places and the consumers who define them. Furthermore, the timetable for integration and permeation was dictated by the politics and support system within the business infrastructure.

A pattern became very obvious. There are at least ten stages of Social Media adoption, strategy, and execution that determine their place in the attention economy of today and tomorrow.

The Evolution of a Corporate Renaissance 2009 – 2010

2010 is designated as the year Social Media proliferates mainstream businesses. Indeed this year will showcase the transformation of business acumen while also shifting the culture and the communication that embraces an inward and outward flow for listening, interacting, learning, and adapting.

Social Media Marketing is exhilarating to behold as it evolves “media” from a broadcast platform to a sophisticated network of connections and rewarding engagement. We learn that through participation, we ultimately eradicate the myths that initially fueled skeptics and prevented early experimentation. The perceived loss of control was in actuality, the ability to realize public sentiment and the gatekeepers who could help us actively steer perception. It is a chance to actually gain control rather than simply possessing the illusion of it.

As 2009 raced to an end, Social Media marketers realized that listening to the proverbial conversation offered very little in terms of influence. In fact, it was the listening that would eventually set the stage for intelligent participation.

It was the realization that listening would only engender empathy. But, in order to truly shape and guide market sentiment and hopefully one day empower advocacy and a new workflow, a supporting infrastructure would require construction.

We are only as relevant as our ability to not only realize the state of affairs, but also have the prowess necessary to define and also adapt along with it.

The next stage of Social Media Marketing will mature from one of listening and unguided participation to one of strategic observation, analysis and informed engagement. It is how we can shift from a state of awareness to one of intelligence, setting the stage for relevance and affinity. It is a new age of “unmarketing” inspired by purpose and vision.

As Social Media evolves, behavior and intention modifies, mirroring the depth of learning and confidence that develops with experience. In New Media, we are always learning and as such, we are forever in pursuit of the next stage.

The 10 Stages of New Media Evolution

Stage 1 – Observe and Report

This is the entry point for businesses to better understand the market behavior and interaction within their marketplaces. These initial tasks materialize the current state of affairs that defines share of voice and the potential for new opportunities to compete for attention.

Listening: The employment of listening devices such as Google Alerts, Twitter Search, Radian6, and PR Newswire’s Social Media Metrics to track conversations and instances associated with key words.

Reporting: Capturing related conversations tied to commentary into a report prepared for executives and managers. This early form of reporting is merely designed to provide decision makers with the information to demonstrate the need for continued exploration into social media and its potential impact on business.

Stage 2 – Setting the Stage + Dress Rehearsal

Upon amassing an initial understanding of conversational dynamics and stature, businesses will build the framework that sets the stage for social media broadcasting and participation. This is an interesting phase as it, in many cases, actually joins Stage 1 as a more sweeping first step. Instead of researching current activity to answer an important question as to why engage in social media at all and as such, how should we engage, many businesses create accounts across multiple social networks and unfortunately publish content without a plan or purpose.

However, those businesses that conduct research will find a rewarding array of options and opportunities of which to analyze and target.

Presence: The creation of official presences across one or more social networks, usually Twitter and possibly Facebook (Fan Pages), YouTube, and Flickr. This stage is also reflective of initial experimentation through activity, with or without the following analysis. But, this is less about strategic engagement in this early stage, resembling either chatter or the traditional broadcasting of messages.

Analysis: Reviewing activity for frequency (the rate of mentions), the state of sentiment allocation, traffic, as well as the size of connections (friends, followers, fans), etc., provides managers with a limited glimpse into the effects of presence and participation.

Stage 3 – Socializing Media

The next stage in the evolution of a new media business is the proverbial step towards “joining the conversation.”

As companies take the stage, they will eventually pay attention to the reaction of the audience in order to respond and improve content, define future engagements, and humanize communication.

Conversation: Representative of an early form of participation, this stage usually evokes reactive engagement based on the nature of existing dialogue or mentions and also incorporates the proactive broadcasting of activity, events and announcements.

Rapid Response: Listening for potentially heated, viral, and emotional activity in order to extinguish a potential crisis or possibly to fan a flame of positive support.

Metrics: The documentation of the aforementioned activity in order to demonstrate momentum in a particular direction – usually captured in the form of friends, fans, followers, conversations, sentiment, mentions, traffic, and reach.

Stage 4 – Finding a Voice and a Sense of Purpose

This is a powerful milestone in the maturation of new media and business. By not only listening, but hearing and observing the responses and mannerisms of those who define our markets, we can surface pain points, source ideas, foster innovation, earn inspiration, learn, and feel a little empathy in order to integrate a sense of purpose into our socialized media programs. We open the door to new possibilities.

Research: Reviewing activity for not only sentiment allocation, but to embrace negative and also neutral commentary to surface and observe trends in responses and ultimately behavior. This allows for a poignant understanding of where to concentrate activity, at what level, and with what voice across marketing, sales, service, and PR.

Strategic Visibility: Introducing relevance and focus, we realize that we don’t have to be everywhere in order to create presence, just in the places where our presence is missed or unfelt. Understanding that the Social Web is far more extensive than Twitter, blogs, and Facebook, brand managers search across the entire Web using listening services or the methodologies rife within the Conversation Prism to locate where influential dialogue transpires.

Relevance: The realization that “chatter” or aimless broadcasting is not as effective as strategic communications and engagement. This stage reflects the exploration of goals, objectives and the exploration and implementation of value. As we learn that interaction is based on exchange and the exchange is measured by loyalty and trust, our interaction is thus defined by benefits and significance.

Stage 5 – Putting Words into Action

Actions speak louder than words and therefore we are committed to putting our words into action. While we opened the door to the emotions that awoke social consciousness, they eventually permeate the spirit of the company and inspire us to set into motion a change in everything we do and say.

Empathy: Social media personifies those with something to say, allowing us to see who it is we’re hoping to reach as well as what motivates them. Listening and observing is not enough. The ability to truly understand someone, their challenges, filters, objectives, options, and experiences allows us to truly become the people with whom we hope to connect.

Purpose: The shift from response to strategic communications, purpose, powered by empathy and resolution, facilitates meaningful and mutually beneficial interaction. Affinity requires an emotional connection, a sense of purpose if you will. It is in this stage that we truly visualize the motivation necessary to captivate one’s attention. In order to hold it, we have to give them something to believe in, something that moves them in a way that they can connect as well as bond.

Stage 6 – Humanizing the Brand and Defining the Experience

As Doc Searls says, “There is no market for messages.” Indeed. Through the internalization of sentiment, brands will relearn how to speak. No longer will we focus on the attempted control of the message from conception to documentation to distribution. We realize that we lose control as our messages are introduced into the real world. Virtual control migrates to the actual control of the shaping and protection of our story as it migrates from consumer to consumer. This chain forms a powerful connection that reveals true reactions, perception, and perspectives.

The conversations that bind us form a Human Algorithm that serves as the pulse of awareness, trustworthiness, and emotion.

Branding – The Humanization of the Brand: Once we truly understand the people who influence our markets, we need to establish a persona worthy of attention and affinity. The state of a brand in social media is largely tied to the awareness that a Socialized version of a branding style guide is necessary. It is during this step that brand managers assess the state of the brand persona, realizing that it is derivative of the actions, words and mannerisms associated with interaction. In this stage the persona of the brand and the personality of those who are representing it are calculated and defined by how it is they wish to be portrayed and perceived.

Experience: Our experiences in dynamic social ecosystems teach us that our activity online must not only maintain a sense of purpose, it must also direct traffic and shape perceptions and experiences in the process. We question our current online properties, landing pages, processes, and messages. We usually find that existing architecture for civil engineering leads people from a very vibrant and interactive experience (social networks) to a static dead end (our Web sites). As we attempt to redefine the experience of new customers, prospects and influencers, we essentially induce a brand makeover.

Stage 7 – Community

Community is an investment in the cultivation and fusion of affinity, interaction, advocacy and loyalty. Learned earlier in the stages of new media adoption, community isn’t established with the creation of a Facebook Fan Page, Group, or any online profile for that matter. Community is earned and fortified through shared experiences. Hosting a community isn’t a prerequisite in the cookie-cutter templates of social media of which so many programs are patterned. Community is a commitment and must be done so without compromise. As Kathy Sierra once said, “Trying to replace ‘brand’ with ‘conversation’ does a disservice to both brands & conversations.”

In this stage, businesses learn and visualize through experience, the nucleus of connections and the interests, pains, hopes, and benefits that bind us.

Community Building/Recruitment: While essentially we are building community through engagement in each of the previous stages, as we now possess intimate knowledge of our stakeholders and influencers, we will proactively reach out to ideal participants and potential ambassadors to personally recruit them. We become social architects to build the roads necessary to escort them to a rich and rewarding network to help them receive valuable information and connections.

Stage 8 – Social Darwinism

Before we can collaborate externally, we have to improve collaboration and communication within. Listening and responding is only as effective as its ability to inspire transformation, improvement, and adaptation from the inside out. Survival of the fittest is not in any way tied to whether or not a company engages in social media. Remember, social is but one part of an overall integrated strategy, all of which will point leaders in the direction to effectively compete for the future. It’s how we learn and adapt that ensures our place within the evolution of our markets.

Social Media as embraced in the earlier stages is not scalable. The introduction of new roles will beget the restructuring of teams and workflow, which will ultimately necessitate organizational transformation to support effective engagement, production, and the ongoing evolution towards ensuring brand and product relevance.

Adaptation: In order to truly compete for the future, the actions that govern genuine and artful listening, community building, and advocacy align, in parallel, with the ability of any organization to adapt and improve products, services, and policies according to the laws of the now Web. In order for any team to effectively collaborate externally, it must first foster collaboration within. It is this interdepartmental cooperative exchange that provides a means for which to pursue sincere engagement over time.

Organizational Transformation: The internal renaissance and reorganization of teams and processes to eventually support a formal sCRM program becomes pervasive. As Social Media chases ubiquity, we learn that influence isn’t relegated to one department or function within the organization. Any department affected by external activity will eventually socialize. Therefore an integrated and interconnected network of brand ambassadors will collaborate internally to ensure that the brand is leading and responding to constructive instances, by department. However, at the departmental and brand level, successful social media marketing will require governance and accountability. Organizational transformation will gravitate towards a top-down hierarchy of policy, education, and empowerment across the entire organization.

Stage 9 – The Socialization of Business Processes

As companies and brands learn through participation and analysis and transform teams and processes to support critical opportunities, the stage of organizational transformation surfaces the channels and themes that map accordingly to the internal structure of departments and divisions affected by outside influence and in turn, can also participate in the direction of said influence to benefit individual goals and objectives.

Multiple disciplines and departments will socialize and therefore the assembly or adaptation of a technology and methodology infrastructure is required to streamline and manage social workflow.

Social CRM (SRM): Once opportunities register, scalability, resources, and efficiencies quickly necessitate consideration and support resulting in a modified, or completely new, infrastructure that either augments or resembles a CRM-like workflow. Combining technology, principles, philosophies and processes, social CRM (sCRM) establishes a value chain that fosters relationships within traditional business dynamics. As an organization evolves through engagement, sCRM will transform into SRM – the recognition that all people, not just customers, are equal. It represents a wider scope of active listening and participation across the full spectrum of influence mapped to specific department representatives within the organization using various lenses for which to identify individuals where and how they interact.

Stage 10 – Business Performance Metrics

Inevitably, we report to executives who don’t wish to quantify transparency or authenticity. Their goal, and job, is to steer the company towards greater profitability, relevance, growth, and new opportunities. In order to measure the true effects of social media and eventually guide people to desired locations and actions, we need insight to the numbers behind the activity – at every level.

While many experts argue that there is no need to measure Social, much in the same way that some companies don’t explicitly define the ROI of Superbowl Ads or billboards, make no mistake, social is measurable and the process of mining data tied to our activity is unbelievably empowering. Our ambition to excel should be driven through the inclusion of business performance metrics with or without an executive asking us to do so. It’s the difference between visibility and presence. And in the attention economy, presence is felt.

ROI: I place ROI in stage ten for several reasons. Without an understanding of the volume, locations, and nature of online interaction, the true impact of our digital footprint and its relationship to the bottom line of any business is impossible to assess. The embodiment of social influence and an immersed view of its path and effects combined with our goals and objectives and an intrinsic knowledge of the resources required to achieve them allow us to truly measure ROI. Stage 10 reveals the meaning and opportunity behind the numbers and allows us to identify ways to introduce opportunities for interaction, direction, and action. The “action” is defined by a desired result or outcome and serves as the beacon to reverse engineer activities that end with a point of capture and analysis.

In The End…

The distance between where we are today and where we need to be however is separated by the people who seek solutions and direction in the places where we’re not currently focused. Our work in 2010 is dedicated to narrowing the social chasm.

The thing about new media is that it’s always new and as such, these stages represent a moment in time. They will continue to change, augment, and expand as new technologies, experiences, and innovations are introduced to those champions who can effectively integrate and learn from experimentation and assessment.

In the end, Social media is privilege and with it, we learn just one more piece of how to run a more meaningful and relevant business.

Social Media is as revolutionary as it is evolutionary. It represents an important chapter in the ongoing saga and transformation of new media.

Over the years, we’ve witnessed that the 10 stages of social media integration in business are almost always set in motion by an internal champion who is determined and impassioned to engender change from the inside out. These champions emerge from different disciplines and departments and are typically role agnostic. Depending on the organization, champions exist in customer service, communications, marketing, interactive, as well as executive management. The change that these champions engender will ultimately represent a revolution in the spirit, philosophy, vision, and framework for organizations, one that increases market relevance and dramatically enhances the opportunity for affinity and fidelity.

Champions however, are the beginning of an important movement, a mainspring that needs the alignment of more formidable allies and platforms to impact the business overall.

Social Media champions are often referred to as change agents or trust agents as their dedication rouses and inspires trust within their organizations as well as within the social communities that define their landscape of influence. Monikers we haven’t yet seen to define these advocates are ones that actually reflect their next stages of growth and advancement. Inevitably all champions become politicians and ultimately diplomats in order to truly become change agents across the entire organization. The difference is that a champion represents a catalyst for defining and presenting the case for adaptation and experimentation. They either do so by acting now and apologizing later, and/or they review and curate case studies and success stories in order to earn support for an official, funded pilot program.

As experience is established and initial successes are presented, champions are then challenged by inspired believers or worse, the opportunists within the organization who realize that social media represents an opportunity for personal and professional advancement. Internal competition ensues and without formal governance or training, social media becomes a landscape that resembles corporate anarchy.

Change agents are not martyrs however, and their passion is not overthrown by the materialization of opportunists. Their fervor is only intensified as they earn and build networks of support within as well as outside through online and offline engagement. Eventually our champions realize that they must become politicians in order to stimulate and advance social media adoption across the entire company. To do so effectively and with meaningful results, it is critical that social media earns the attention, support and focus of the executives who hold the wheel for steering the current and future direction of the company.

Politicians understand that in order to reach the greater goal of the cause they so passionately believe in, they must also lobby on behalf of that cause among the policy makers and change agents that exist in key posts at every level. In doing so, a wave of validation and constituencies will rise and grow as it migrates toward the heart of the organization.

Through every experiment, success, or failure, the understanding of social media only intensifies. As such, social media programming will grow more sophisticated over time – representing a new age for social media. In many ways, the potential for social media is beyond the grasp of any one individual and as such, politicians become diplomats to introduce experiences across the organization in sensitive and effective ways.

While social experimentation starts and flourishes within one department, every outward facing group as well as those affected by inbound and surrounding influence, will need to socialize (whether it’s through engagement or simply by learning through observation, listening and research). What begins as a bottom-up movement requires a top-down directive to precipitate a formal renaissance sparked by champions, lobbied through politicians, and promoted through emissaries.

The socialization of media creates a vital, plugged-in business channel and as such, support from the C-suite is mandatory. However, many executives are not clear in how they should lead transformation and therefore require guidance from those politicians who have successfully lobbied for and earned support. As discussed in my next book, the creation of New Media Councils or Advisory Boards are imperative to the expansion of socially-aware programs and the departments and resources that can support and scale with them.

The question of who owns social media suddenly dissipates in favor of a discussion that is far more substantial and productive. It’s a collaborative process embraced by the entire organization with specific benefits defined and delivered to everyone involved, including those affected by our actions.

Over the years, I have participated in the creation of many Advisory Boards, both internal (current employees) and external (stakeholders, influencers, experts), within small businesses and Fortune 500 companies as a way of organizing efforts and resources around the vision of champions, turned politicians. This council essentially facilitates collaboration, addresses politics, secures buy-in across the organization, pools budgets, and promotes accountability.  More importantly, one of the council’s primary objectives and responsibilities is to ensure the education and advancement of employees to create an organization rife with ambassadors and advocates beyond the original group of champions. Advisors should include representatives from each division that requires a social presence, and let’s not forget legal, as well as those individuals who represent the people inside the organization as well as those who define our markets.

The path from champion to politician to diplomat is long and tumultuous, but it is however, essential to the furtherance of new media within the organization as well as to the career of those who remain diligent and sincere. While the word politician may evoke certain emotions, usually less than complimentary, the difference in goals, tactics, and objectives represents an intrinsic shift from proponent, promoter, and crusader to a new role as strategist, lobbyist, community builder, and campaigner.

Where do you see yourself in this sea of change?