In a recent  article, ClickZ likens the current environment to early paid search in  Social Media 2009 = Search 2002

If you’ve been in the interactive advertising business for at least the last five years, you’ll recognize the pitch for social media to be nearly identical to the ones we heard (and made) in 2002 for search. Search ads were fast and cheap to create and dirt cheap. (You didn’t even have to pay unless you got a click!) In the face of a bloated and barely effective display advertising market, search looked to be the best deal in town.

Honestly, I am not predicting that one medium will trump the other, but I believe that a single tool arsenal is not the Internet “marketing” solution. Staking one’s business upon Google results is simply not a sound solution. For a few weeks, the question, “will Twitter trump Google?” has been circulating tweets and blogs.

No, but social media will rule supreme as the top referrer of the web.

Twitter is already towering over the news sources in the UK and this doesn’t even include the API connections (i.e. Tweetdeck, Twhirl) to the social service:

TechCrunch reports:

In February, 4 million people in the U.S. visited the site, up from 2.6 million the month before, according to the latest data from comScore. That represents a 55 percent month-over-month growth rate, compared to 33 percent growth in each of the two months prior.

There is a good reason for this explosion in use. Social media serves niches that search engines and blogs alone cannot.

1. Internet Portal

Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter are many people’s portal to the Internet. Sorry of conjuring up imagery of AOL. But, these are the first and last accessed sites that many people use during their Internet sessions. In a recent Nielsen study, 10% of all “internet time” is spent in social networks.  Facebook is being used as their portal page to the web, and they find referral links through in-network communications.

2. Hyperlocality

National sites and search engines will always be handicapped to scale down to provide accurate poignant local results-despite the changes to the algorithm. Social Networks have the ability to scale because the content creators are local. For example, if you want a Hot Dog in a particular city, page one results and the top result are far more national with localized information (Krystal). However, tapping out less than 140 characters, “where is the best Chicago dog in Knoxville?” will likely return nuanced and accurate local results.

3. Contextual Relevancy (crowdsourcing)

In the network of friends and followers, questions are not blindly stripped and plugged into an algorithm that may or may not account for misspellings or memory lapse. For example try this query on Google, “what is the name of the place that used to be next to the pizza parlor on johnson st.” Surprisingly, the same query to Twitter will likely yield a poignant response. In addition, all of these past queries are searchable.

The key difference here is primary vs. secondary research. My network “filters” the results for me:

add context to relevant information. Searchers don’t just want facts. They want to learn more about the experiences of real people they can relate to.

Trust is key. These “relational” or “social” queries are built on trust. If I ask a question to my network and they mislead me then I turn them off (unfollow or unfriend). On the other hand, the percentage of trust in search engines results continues to decline.

4. Immediacy

On a cold day in January while staring off into my tweetcloud in tweetdeck. I noticed a surge in Hudson and Plane. At least 30 minutes before any television news network could mobilize, Twitter broke the story. The Hudson is not the only case. The Mumbai terrorist attacks were best reported via Twitter by people inside the hotel.

Users can access Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn through web, text message, mobile applications. So, unfiltered information can be in real time. As these services become more ubiquitous, we will have a variety of devices that are fully integrated with our social networks–and yes that will include more than just my washer telling me that the spin cycle has finished.

5. Direct Access

Throw your Rolodex out the window. Social networks are connecting people directly to their sources. Want to complain about comcast or tell motrin that their ad is offensive? You don’t have to write letters that may or may not be read, you can tweet or blog directly to the source.

The caveat is that  BS detectors are very high in social mediums. For an advertiser or owner, simply setting up twitterhawk to swoop in to keyword mentions or hiring ghosttweeters to engage customers can be catastropic. Inauthentic posts or ghost written material can be obvious to readers / followers / friends, and as @guykawasaki has learned, exposure of ghost writing can be a disaster (or at least distracting).

6. Eavesdropping is Awesome

My guilty pleasure is  to eavesdrop on (interesting) conversations while dining in restarants. Whether on someone’s wall or in their Twitter feed, social marketing is largely about listening to people talking. If something is interesting, we are generally permitted to engage in that conversation. Of course, this can be exploited by marketers, but in some cases I want to be engaged while ranting about the ridiculously slow download speeds on my comcast connection.

7. Google Doesn’t Care

Some suggest that Google is “passionate” about providing quality search results. Google is an advertising company; first and foremost the objective is to generate revenue. Facebook recently redesigned the intro screen to open up more advertising, and this emphasis towards ads will like be more pervasive in future redesigns. On the other hand, Twitter’s revenue model is nebulous and undefined [probably best served and most profitable to sell to Google]. Therefore the free flow of information is not altered by the revenue model (yet).

Search engines are not going away. They will continue to improve the results, but the fact remains that people are continualy drawn to people. This is not a new phenomena as any listserve or newsgroup junkies of web 1.0 will tell you. As social networks continue to proliferate, they will become increasingly important referrers of the web.

Think a hub and spokes concept, with the hub being the Web site and spokes being the various online tools now available.

In addition to offering consulting services, we are working on several sites including Coupon Katie.

photo by tochis

So, they have talked about it for some time. I just want to say, “it’s here.” Welcome to the age of the conversation. Don’t believe me? Leave me a comment below, and we can talk about it.

The days of standing in an auditorium with a spotlight on stage shouting while the audience obediently listens are over. The era of big broadcast messages on television shows, billboards that clutter every open space, or in the pages of your magazine are reaching the end of their usable lives. People are tired of businesses screaming at them and telling them what to buy, at what price and how many. Now consumers are talking to each other, talking to the businesses, and sometimes even shouting back, a little.

B 2 C (Business to Consumer) is redefined. Under the new definition, Business to Conversation, businesses eavesdrop on the Consumer to Consumer conversation for an opportunity to jump in:

Take Comcast, for example. Have a problem with your cable or internet connection. Jump on Twitter and start talking about your experience. I wager that a friendly tweet will come from @comcastcares trying to help–talking with you about your problems (and not just sleeping on your couch).

Have a problem with Quickbooks? I posted about the diabolic Quickbooks. Within a few hours, Intuit jumps into the conversation pledging assistance.

A friend was raving about a new wireframing application, Balsamiq, through a tweet. They reached out to him and started a conversation about the product. They not only gave him a free license to the product, they offered more licenses to friends. The online conversation that started with a tweet sprang to life as he truly had something to talk about: a great product and a company that engaged.

B 2 C is also flipped to C 2 B. The consumer now has a voice to reach out and talk to businesses. If careful and attentive a business can listen exactly to the needs of their market. What would have required focus groups and millions of dollars in testing is now just a matter listening, which is reserved for the courageous.

After listening to a few raving reviews, I wanted an invite to a cool new application, Boxee, but Alpha testing was backlogged. After my subtle suggestion, Boxee obliged the next day. By gently listening, which in this case required nothing more than a search feed, this company can organically grow their product to interested parties. Compare that with a blairing billboard.

Sometimes the Customers shout a bit more. Glenn Reynolds’ core concept in Army of Davids is that the emerging (conversational) Web and other technological enhancements are allowing the little guy take down giants. For example, conversations between a group of moms in the fall of 2008 forced the Goliath, Motrin, to yank their ads after a short run.

We are truly in a different era that is not fully understood. Some businesses lightly wade into the social sphere to “get the benefits” of the new web, but they are unwilling to truly get wet. Unfortunately, there are some still standing on the dimly lit stage, shouting and no one is listening–they just don’t get it. The age of conversation is here, just listen.

Interaction of Social Media Sites for Marketing Strategies

It is certainly not a new idea to describe online assets in this way, but I think “hub and spoke” is fairly fitting for the current web environment. Clear execution throughout all channels is important, so engaging in social media requires strategy–although many apply a whimsical approach.

I encourage clients to:

• Identify goals
• Identify appropriate mediums
• Create genuine, quality content–even if it hurts
• Truly engage with others
• Remain active

There is no easy shortcut to crafting your online persona. It takes time and energy to create these networks, but the benefits are significant not only to generating more business but also the learning that occurs in the engagement of others. Hit me here if you would like to discuss more.

Writing a weblog today isn’t the bright idea it was four years ago. The blogosphere, once a freshwater oasis of folksy self-expression and clever thought, has been flooded by a tsunami of paid bilge. Cut-rate journalists and underground marketing campaigns now drown out the authentic voices of amateur wordsmiths. It’s almost impossible to get noticed, except by hecklers. And why bother? The time it takes to craft sharp, witty blog prose is better spent expressing yourself on Flickr, Facebook, or Twitter.

I thought I would post a blog about it, and I hope that it draws more comments than those haranguing hecklers Paul references. In many ways, I tend to agree that microblogging and many 2.0 apps have changed the face of the personal publication model. To me, all of these tools become facets of my online persona, but the blog is central to this online presence.

Although it is possible to have superintegration across blog/facebook/twitter/freiendfeed/linkedin/youtube/flickr/etc., each of these personal promotion channels, have seperate communities (despite the crossover). After feeding tweets to Facebook for some period, it became clear that my tweetquency was too high for my conversation to be meaningful to Facebook friends. For me, the blog becomes the central hub of my online persona to all of the spokes (or channels) of social media.

Many activities that were formerly blog content now appear as tweets.  I write blog posts once or twice a week as opposed to once or twice a day, but I am actually publishing/retweeting/linking more content than ever before. Tweets are pithy. They may even have misspellings or ramblings. They generally are not thoughtful and well edited like blogs. However, with my posts, I try to think before I type. Therefore, blogs become more informational, reflective commentary, and the more pedestrian commentary happens in these other outlets.

Despite this Zarathustrian proclamation, blogs aren’t dead, and we didn’t kill them–at least not in 2008.

• 50% Twitter
• 40% Facebook
• 10% LinkedIn