Brian Solis asked:


Sociology – The study of human social behavior, especially the study of the origins, organization, institutions, and development of human society.

About a year ago, I wrote an article entitled Social Media is About Sociology and not Technology. The recognition of people versus the tools is now more critical than ever. Although, it still isn’t necessarily embodied in many of the words and work shared by fellow Social Media Marketers.

Less talk, more learning and action are required.

There’s no shortage of people who understand and present existing and emerging Social Tools for us to use as a mechanism for “engaging” in “conversations.”

Participation after all, is marketing right?

Let’s change that.

Informed, mutually beneficial, and genuine participation inspires relationship marketing.

However, many purported Social Media experts are merely engaging in cultural voyeurism at best. They look from afar and roam the perimeters of online societies without ever becoming a true member of any society. This means, they don’t truly understand what, where, or why they’re “participating,” only jumping in because they have something to say and have access to the tools that will carry it into play. This is unfortunately a representation of the greater landscape of Social Media Marketing and it’s time to take a step back and study the sociology of Social Media in order to keep communities intact and unaffected by outsiders.

The future of communications requires the consideration of sociological principles when integrating Social Media into the marketing chemistry. This is one of the most important points where we simply need to stop and think about things. As in all of marketing, the most effective campaigns start with listening, reading, watching, and observing. In the world of Social Media, this is not an option. It’s dependent on Sociology and the study of people and cultures online before we even think about engaging them in conversations.

Again, Social Media is about sociology and not technology. This is about people and the cultures that shape respective online communities.

Is Social Media, we’re reminded that “listening” is the key to engagement. In Sociology, this is referred to as observation. By observing, either directly or virtually, we become Social Scientists in order to feedback intelligence and insight into the marketing loop.

Two basic types of observations exist:



Unobtrusive. The observer is detached and does not take an active part in the situation.

- Observer as participant. Observer admits their role and just observes the situation, behavior and interactions.

- Complete observer. Observer hides their true identity.

 

Participant. The observer joins a group and studies as an inside member.

- Complete. The observer hides their identity. There are a number of problems with this type of observation: ethical, is it morally right to use such methods? By joining the group the observer may alter its behavior and culture; and going native and adopting the norms and values of the group.

- Participant as observer. Here the observer does not hide their identity and is truthful about their goals and objectives.



 

Most Social Media Marketing initiatives I have observed (whether I was asked to assess a company’s program specifically or simply watched a very public campaign as a student), have not observed much more than the “latest and greatest” tools that can get them in front of bubbling and active social networks and communities.

 

This is the equivalent of setting up camp next to a village because you have the tools to do so and expecting the village to integrate you into their society.

It just doesn’t work that way.

Sociology provides us with an understanding of how social forces shape individual attitudes and behavior. Sociologists study society and social action by examining the groups and social institutions people form. In Social Media, these communities take the form of social networks and the communal groups within them. People form associations, friendships, and allegiances around content, objects, products, services, and ideas. How they communicate is simply subject to the tools and networks that people adopt based on the influence of their social graph – and the culture within.

Sociologists also study the social interactions of people and groups, trace the origin and growth of social processes, and analyze the influence of group activities on individual members and vice versa.

The basic goal of sociological research is to understand the social world in its many forms. Social Media, and marketing in general, could only benefit from intelligence. And at the very least, it removes the risk of “marketing at” people and instead naturally shapes a more honest, intelligent, and informative approach.

Quantitative and qualitative methods represent two main types of sociological research. Quantitative methods, such as social statistics or network analysis, investigate the structure of a social process or describe patterns in social relationships. Qualitative methods, including focused interviews, group discussions and ethnographic methods, reveal social processes.

Social Media is much more than user-generated content. It’s driven by people in the communities where they communicate and congregate. They create, share, and discover new content without our help right now. They’re creating online cultures across online networks and using the Social Tools that we learn about each and every day to stay connected. And the societies that host and facilitate these conversations cultivate a tight, unswerving and mostly unforgiving community and culture. As Shel Israel describes it, people are populating Global Neighborhoods.

Technology is just that, technology. The tools will change. The networks will evolve. Mediums for distributing content will grow. The tools will change, but in most cases, people don’t.

It starts with intent and the realization that the communities you wish to reach are not “audiences.”

You simply can not get answers or run a meaningful Social Media program through cultural voyeurism.

Social Media Marketing requires observation, which will dictate your engagement strategies. It starts with combination of using Social and Traditional tools to discover, listen, learn, and engage directly with customers to help, not market, but indeed help them make decisions and also do things that they couldn’t, or didn’t know how to do, before. And, most importantly, the lessons learned in the field should in turn be fed into the marketing department to create and run more intelligent, experienced, and real world initiatives across all forms of marketing, PR, sales, and advertising.

Read, Transforming Customers into Evangelists: The Art of Listening and Engagement, to learn more about how to listen and observe.

Today Social Media Marketers state that conversations are markets and markets are conversations. This is the foundation for conversational marketing.

But what does that really mean?

Instead, let’s look at it this way.

Conversations are feeding communities and communities are markets for relationships. Relationships are the new currency in Social Media, and as we all know, relationships need cultivation and value from both sides in order to grow into something of value.

In this world, engagement is a privilege. Trust and loyalty are the rewards.



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William Potts asked:


Social media implies that you facilitate a two-way discussion, rather than a one-way bombardment of marketing messages. In short, this means that you stay engaged and in a discussion with visitors.

Social Media sites come and go like the wind. It seems like every 5 seconds some entrepreneur is just around the corner with another Digg or del.icio.us knockoff.

Hoping that whatever maneuver they can bring to the table will make them this week’s hot topic or at least clever enough to catch the eye of whomever might have some money and want to absorb some wicked bit of code or an entire social media community.

Social media (or new media) involves a LOT of things, a lot of tech, and could need a lot of resources (not necessarily money). When you say you do social media, and you want to launch a network of some sort, does that mean the entire process is done in-house?

Social media marketing can bring traffic and links to any website. Too often, marketers overlook the value of social media and tend to stick with traditional methods, while the younger generation of webpreneurs has employed social sites as an every-day strategy.

Social media is gowing at a such a rate that domains, websites and blogsites will increase in value due to the increased demand for webspace. The social aspect is driving the net into new territory and expands exponentially because of its viral nature.

Social media – as understood in a Web 2.0 context and has enabled us to play more effectively than was practical previously, on a global field.

Social Media has released us, freed us: and we won’t go back. Social media has been a great resource for both ideas and traffic for my blog. If you work and get noticed in social media and it gets passed around that’s a great way to promote your work.

Social media seek’s (in theory and in word, at least) a different kind of influence: peer review and approval. The medium and the form of discourse that it supports are wide open.

Social Media is a Branding Exercise – while social media sites can send you a lot of traffic very very quickly they can also be excellent places to do branding. Every time a reader or potential reader comes across you on a social media site the more you reinforce your brand.

Social media marketing is actually becoming necessary but it has to be done right. It is about the weight of numbers and it will bring some honesty, ethics and accountability back to doing business.

Social Media is conversational media in all its interactive forms including text, video and spoken words – whether face to face, over the Internet, over the airwaves or via mobile technologies such as iPods and cell phones.

A Social Media Club is intended to be a place where amateurs and professionals can come together to learn from one another, to understand each other and to work together on the things that make meaning in their lives – their personal passions, their professional endeavours and their noble pursuits.

Social Media, doesn’t even really exist as a subset of media. Everything is social now, we just expect it. Social media companies will race to provide metrics that show impressive results, but that’s not necessarily a good thing, especially given the ways measurement may shape investment and in turn shape the evolution of social mediums.

Social media campaign’s go far beyond the traditional agency model of media planning and buying. So do advertisers they actually get into the game and get their campaign’s out there.

Social media is changing the way online businesses advertise because control of the message is shifting to the consumer.

Social Media Optimization (SMO) is a new term that was recently coined by Rohit Bhargava and has since been taking on life of its own. SMO tactics can drive huge amounts of people to a website and can also determine whether a startup, website or idea will make it or not.

Social media will be the optimal place to market especially with a recession. Social networks are a rich source of HIGHLY niche audiences and therefore are highly target-able.



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Glenn Mosser asked:


The common thread of social media marketers is that they connect with the world, the people, and their surroundings. These people are connecting, communicating and reach out to others. Always sharing and giving news and ideas. The main interest is other people, always sharing and being active in the interest of others. To be successful in Social Media one must be active in it. Social Media marketers are communicators.

A good Social Media marketer knows the area. Look at it like a map. You must know the layout and the terrain. Understand the products, the people you are reaching out to, understand the industry you are promoting. An expert Social Media marketer must understand the Internet as if they are a member of the community and they know, understand and gain the trust of that community. You will fail if you do not have the working knowledge of customers, markets, and the complete picture of the company’s product. Knowing the Internet, using it most effectively and being able to distribute the information is very important.

Proficiency in the various social web community is the main goal of  a good Social Media marketer. One that connects, an information resource at the same time being very trustful and an active participant, a conversationalist in the social media community.

Ideally, a Social Media marketer, not really “marketer”, is a person with many qualities, Web Marketer, Customer Service and PR combined with genuine enthusiasm, trustfulness (listening, speaking, a conversationalists).

Do not let all of the tools, peer pressures, and work get in the way of the big picture, our morals and knowledge that develop significant and gratifying associations. As an expert in Social Media, we must have the ability to conclude which networks are pertinent to the product/service we represent. And why, how and when to fit into place.

The conclusion, those who find the most success in the social media marketing territory are those who are seriously networked and make certain that continue constant associations is part of their everyday routine.



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Justin Brooke asked:


In conversation with other marketers, I am often asked how Social Media Marketing is useful to a website. I realize that not everyone understands how social media marketing (SMM) can affect a websites page rank, traffic, sales (the list could go on).

Content is an extremely valuable resource to all web users. By putting it to work for your website you can find yourself as the “Reliable Content Provider” also known as an “Authority” on that topic. You can use social media to give you that authority.

Recently, I implemented just a few of the social media techniques taught my Social Media Rockstars and promoted my website to top ten Google rankings – making it an authority site for a keyword related to my business. Here is my example of how social media marketing affects the natural search listing.

1. First, I had a business website that needed more traffic (what website couldn’t use more traffic). This is already a successful website for a few other keywords, but I wanted to spread the valuable content provided with this website.

2. I then researched a high traffic, low competition keyword that was related to my business website. You only want traffic that is looking or searching for what you can provide them. I do not want to falsely advertise with irrelevant content otherwise all my efforts with social media marketing would be a waste.

3. Next, I researched my market to find out what they were looking for and how I could best provide valuable content to the web searchers looking up that keyword.

4. Then I created multiple forms of content – content is information provided to a website searcher; this can be text, video, or audio. *Remember that relevant content is what you want to create.*

The content was broken down into one short video and 12 articles. 3 of the articles were 1000 words, and the remaining nine articles ranged from 300-500 words. Note: be sure that this content is in someway relating back to the main site that you wanted to increase traffic, sales, or reputation. Whatever your purpose, be sure that this content is helping.

5. Now you need to spread the content across the different social media sites. I added the larger articles to the more popular social media sites.

Of course the video went to you tube. And for the social media sites that allowed me to share a video along with my content I added the video to it.

These 12 articles and one video spread across 13 sites drove traffic back to my businesses website. The key here is to post your content on a site that has a high page rank. This will tell the search engines that the content is coming from a reliable and valuable source. In return, those high ranking sites give your site higher rankings (or a more trusted reputation) because it’s being promoted by a high ranking website. (Sort of like the popular high school student introducing the new kid – you start off on a higher social status).

Don’t stop there! With social media marketing you need to share the content. You can so this by using social bookmarking sites, posting the information to a blog and sharing the article links in a forum. People are always looking for free information. Share your free information with everyone you can. If it’s valuable and relevant to the web users you shared it with they will also bookmark it on social bookmark sites creating viral traffic.

Now if, you remember form the beginning my main purpose was to increase traffic to an already published website. I now have 12 articles, loads of social bookmarks, and a video linking back to my website. If I did my social media marketing correctly this will definitely increase the traffic coming to my business website.

But that’s not my only result: because I have all of these popular authority sites sending traffic my way, the search engines now see that I am providing valuable content. In return for providing this content and sharing it through social media marketing tactics I have boosted the listing placement of my original website. Now in the search results for my targeted keyword I have dominated the top 5 pages with articles, social bookmarks, videos, and more importantly my main business website.

With my recent efforts in social media marketing (with in the last month), I moved my business website from the 21st position in Google to the 8th. On top of that, I hold 14 other positions in the top 30 search results for my targeted keyword. All this and I didn’t use half of the resources available with social media marketing.



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Bob Withers asked:


The most recent phenomenon to hit the Internet Marketing scene in recent years is another form of Internet Marketing in its own right called Social Media Marketing. While Social Media Marketing has the capability to drive hordes of targeted traffic to your website there are still some pitfalls involved which you should try to avoid, at all costs, if you want to be successful with your Social Media Marketing campaign.

First of all one of the major targets of Social Media Marketers are the social media websites themselves, for example, MySpace and Facebook. In order to target and market to these sites you have to join and attract friends to your profile page. The first thing to avoid after joining is becoming involved with any of the software available which allows you to send mass invitations to certain groups you may have targeted inviting them to be your friends.

Everyone in the group receives a generic message inviting them to be your friend. If the site owner or webmaster discovers you are using this software you could be banned for life or, at the very least, have your membership suspended for a period of time. This can result in giving you a bad reputation within this community and make it very difficult to build any type of trusting relationship you need to establish for your future marketing activities on this site.

Another pitfall to be avoided is related somewhat to the first demonstrating how any type of news, good or bad, travels fast within these social media networks. When you approach your Social Media Marketing campaign and any of these social media websites you have to do so with the right attitude. By saying this I mean you have to be open and honest about your intentions. You have to be Transparent.

If you try to deceive any of your social networks it will usually come back to haunt you which can, again, result in a tarnished if not trashed reputation within these internet communities. A wise Internet Marketer once told me, when it comes to Internet Marketing the more you give, the more you receive. This brings us to a third pitfall which, if not avoided, can stall your Social Media Marketing campaign as if it were mired in quicksand. And this is, always be available and eager to offer help and advice.

But don’t offer advice if it’s not requested. If you are available to answer a Blog or forum question for someone who is stuck in a particular situation and needs help then by all means try to help. This will pay big dividends later on when needed because your reputation will precede you which, in this case, will be a good thing.

A fourth and final pitfall has to do with knowing who you are approaching. In other words you wouldn’t take a trip to Singapore without doing a little preparation and study about the culture and practices of these particular people. You should take the same approach when planning your social media campaign. If you’re approaching communities such as Facebook or MySpace, learn the proper etiquette and above all try not to offend anyone.

Especially try not to offend anyone who wields any kind of influence or power over the other members of the community. This too can result in a quick death for your Social Media Marketing campaign. If you approach your promotion with these four pitfalls in mind and put in the necessary planning and preparation as you would with any marketing campaign then you will be much more likely to encounter success with your social media strategy.



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Kimberly Bock asked:


What is Social Media, according to Google:

These are the results for “define social media”..(these definitions may vary with time)



A category of sites that is based on user participation and user-generated content. They include social networking sites like LinkedIn or Facebook, social bookmarking sites like Del.icio.us, social news sites like Digg or Reddit, and other sites that are centered on user interaction.

The term social media describes media that is posed by the user and can take many different forms. Some types of social media are forums, message boards, blogs, wikis and podcasts. Social media applications include Google, Facebook and YouTube.

Software tools that allow groups to generate content and engage in peer-to-peer conversations and exchange of content (examples are YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, MySpace etc)



You’ll notice, as you read through each definition, that you’re receiving explanations by examples.

Social Media not new, it’s a buzz term by marketers. It has existed for numerous years.

In fact, the first email ever sent, the first website ever created, the microblogging tools we use, commenting, and every other form of interaction with people on a global scale or in your backyard by way of the internet, has been by the use of what is referred to as Social Media today.

What is Social Media, according to Wikipedia:



Social media is the use of electronic and Internet tools for the purpose of sharing and discussing information and experiences with other human beings. The term most often refers to activities that integrate technology, social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio.

This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and “building” of shared meaning among communities, as people share their stories and experiences.

What is Social Media, according to other ndividuals:

You say, “Certainly the well known authors have provided clear definitions.”

Let’s take a look:

Robert Scoble says, “Compare it to what’s come before.”

Chris Heuer says, “Social Media is redefining how we relate to each other as humans and how we as humans relate to the organizations that serve us. While it is commonly represented by blogs, podcasts, vlogs, wikis, user generated content and social networks, it is not about those specific things as much as it is about what happens around and because of those things.”

Mark Dykeman says, “Social media are the means for any person to:  publish digital creative content; provide and obtain real-time feedback via on-line discussions, commentary, and evaluations; and incorporate changes or corrections to the original content.”

What is Social Media Really?



Social Media is a verb. An action term. Not a noun.

“Media” is and always has been the singular form of “Medium” which means storage and transmission tools used to store and deliver information or data.

Add the word “Social” and it means you & I interacting, communicating, exchanging information..SOCIALIZING.

That being said, the simple and understandable definition of Social Media is..(drumroll please)

“The use of internet platforms and tools which enable interaction and communication between users.”



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