Biz talked about the way Twitter was developed, like so many other interesting services, as a side-project, which then quickly evolved into something remarkable thanks to its sheer simplicity and malleability. He said that early reactions from potential investors suggested they couldn't see past this simplicity, and this was echoed by Reid Hoffman, who was told by VCs in 2003 that social networking would be a feature of dating sites, recruiting sites and other existing destination web sites, but not a meaningful service in its own right.

Talking about future social networking services, Reid said "You ain't seen nothing yet," and suggested we have only just begun to explore the power of people, connected. How we connect with other people gives us meaning in life, and he thinks there are many more ways in which we will explore this notion with future products and services - with the next wave of web innovation being about what we do with the massive amounts of data and insight emerging from the participation of billions of people.

Biz talked about his passionate belief that being better informed leads to being more engaged, which in turn creates empathy for others, and Twitter's ability to facilitate this is a triumph of humanity. With over 4 billion active mobile accounts in the world (compared to 1.65bn web accounts), there is a lot of growing still to do if we are to share this beyond the early adopters who have taken up micro-blogging in the past two years.

But I think Stephen Fry had the quote of the day:

writing makes us free

What I think he meant by this was that the constraints of short form simple text act create a level playing field where even the nerdiest, least confident communicator can express themselves and make connections.

There were also some good questions at the event, covering issues such as:

The danger of mobs: Stephen replied that all new technology is accused of prompting mobs and demagoguery, but that this fear would pass as people get used to it. Reid acknowledged the wisdom of crowds can become the madness of mobs, but was sure that individual expression is pretty much always a good thing and a key to democracy.

Twitter vs the mainstream media: Biz pointed out that the relationship is symbiotic, since much of Twitter's discussion is based on information from the media, and whilst the service can break news, it is not so good at providing the context and background that journalism can offer.

Is Twitter making us stupid? No, said Stephen, who pointed out that abbreviation and creative flexibility in language is a sign of healthy culture, citing for example Byron's letters that used abbreviations not unlike texting language to cope with the space limitations of the early postal service. He also reminded us that using services like Twitter, any of us can assemble a greater collection of information, insight and wisdom than was available to Napoleon or a similar powerful leader of his time. This is a remarkable affordance.

Politicians on Twitter: If they are truly open and honest then that would be amazing and help them overcome the spin and abuse of newspapers and the media, said Stephen; Reid added that they should also see Twitter as a two-way street where they can listen, as well as speak, to benefit from the collective and network intelligence created by others.

A recent study revealed 20 percent of tweets published are actually invitations for product information, answers or responses from peers or directly by brand representatives. Now we learn that Twitter users are actively paying attention to brands on the popular information network.

According to research conducted by Performics and ROI Research, about half of Twitter users who were introduced to a brand on Twitter were compelled to search for additional information.

The companies studied the activity of 3,000 users of social networks in the U.S. Of those polled, 70% use Facebook, 40% use YouTube, and 22% use Twitter.

Participants were presented with roughly 100 questions that explored how they discover products in social networks and also their thresholds for advertising and marketing.

The survey found that 48% of those who came into contact with a brand name on Twitter went on to search for additional information on search engines compared to 34% on other social networks, which to be clear, is also an impressive number.

The inspiration, it seems, was tied to a desire to surface additional information about a product, service, or brand with 30% claiming they wished to learn more. Just under one-third (27%), reported that they were receptive to receiving invitations for events, special offers or promotions. 25% stated that they visited a site after learning about a product on their social network of preference.

Perhaps most astounding, was the number of people who readily share brand-related information with others. 44% admitted that they have recommended products in Social Media and 39% stated that they have discussed a product specifically on Twitter. However, Facebook users seemed to edge out Twitter, with 46% of respondents talking about or recommending products on the 225 million strong social network.

The economy seems to have galvanized a new channel for businesses to benefit from cost-effective “un” marketing campaigns, mostly driven by the community seeking and sharing information about interesting and favorite brands and products.  Direct engagement on social networks in support of this new found awareness will either foster interaction and collaboration or wind up decreasing the signal to noise ratio and polluting the stream of interactivity and resulting actions around brands.

Encouraging data such as that produced by this report, will motivate businesses to engage or amplify their existing programs. Nothing beats value however – for both sides of the equation. With Social Media comes great responsibility and accountability. We either introduce resolution, hope, excitement, empathy, and opportunity or we take away from the experience and diminish our prospects.

Everything indeed begins with search and this is why inbound marketing and social media optimization are so critical in this day and age. The act of marketing through participatory programs is only part of the answer. The other side relates to understanding where, when, and how people are interacting around your business, your competitors, and other parallel products and services. Placing content and social objects in these networks, fully optimized for discovery, places strategic messages and information in places where it can and will be found. It’s not unlike hiding Easter eggs. You can either make them difficult to find or you can employ tactics to make sure those seeking them will find them easily.

The social web is much greater than your ability to converse and interact within it directly. Outside of empowering the community to help extend your tenets, story and value proposition, social objects can serve as your brand beacons.

Search and you will find. Strategically place and you will be discovered.

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The European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA) has published its Internet Barometer Report (via Marketing Charts), which shows that 83% of European marketers plan to up their online ad spend in 2010.   One in three (33%) organisations are now including mobile in their strategies confirming the increasing importance of the mobile Internet.

But at the same time,one of the key drivers for marketers, in addition to changing consumer habits, is the perception that you get more bang for your buck online, with 31% citing cost efficiencies as a factor behind their decision.

There’s of course a very important health warning with that, namely the on-going debate about click through rates in online advertising.

In fact, in the Summer Double Click (via Indolent) published research about engagement with Internet advertising and found that the UK performed worst with a 0.08% click through rate compared to the US (0.1%), France (0.12%) and Germany (0.13%) .

However, at the same time Comscore has results out showing that when combined with a social engagement, people are more than twice as likely to search for brands online.  In that sense maybe on and offline marketing isn’t so different.    Advertising can work, but it works best when it’s integrated with other disciplines.

Online budgets taken from every pot

Finally this diagram is interesting, the EIAA looked at where budgets are being reallocated from to make up the online pot.   36% of marketers thought that online budgets were being taken from TV, while 30% mentioned direct mail and magazines that were losing out and 27% mentioned newspapers.

This is another in a series of notes from the 2009 KM World. It is titled: Is Semantic Technology Real? It is moderated by Rob Gonzalez, Platform Product Manager, Endeca Technologies and include: Michael J. Cataldo, CEO, Cambridge Semantics, Daniela Barbosa, Business Development Manager, Dow Jones Client Solutions, Dow Jones & Company, Lorenzo Thione, Founder / Principal Program Manager, Powerset / Bing Microsoft, Inc.  Here is the session description.

“Semantic technology is all the rage, sometimes even dubbed “Web 3.0.” However, many people—especially those making technology decisions for enterprises—wonder whether semantic technology has meaningful applications in the enterprise. Based on hands-on experience working with semantic tools, this panel of experts will establish the boundaries between reality and hype and help you understand what enterprises can gain from semantic technology in the here and now.”

Cambridge Semantics provides semantic development tools.  Dow Jones Client Solutions helps clients with taxonomy solutions, as well as other information needs. Powerset was acquired by Microsoft. It is Web semantic search tool.  Rob said, in answer to the panel title question, that semantic search has been applied successfully inside the enterprise and on the Web.

Rob asked the panel if there any examples of financially successful Web applications of semantic technologies. Lorenzo said yes. This happens more when you use semantic technologyto improve an existing site or product on such applications as consumer search. It seems harder for new sites such as Wolfram Alpha.

Daniela said in publishing there have been successful examples such as the Huffington Post and some Web advertising that use semantic web but do not promote it. The sites that promote that they are semantic Web are less successful.  Best Buy is using semantic web with their whole catalog but it is not promoted as a semantic web site. Google bought a semantic search company and it formed the foundation for Adsense and Adwords.

Semantic web appls let you combine different data sets like comparing the odds that you will be killed by sharks vs. vending machines.  It turns out that Vending machines are more deadly.  Semantic search helps people better define what they want in search.  The definition of semantic technology has been fluid.  Rob said it is everything from natural language document processing, and sentiment analysis to geotagging so it is metadata on top of data.  It is finding new meaning in data. Michael said semantic technologies are based on emerging standards on ontologies, distributed query, and other related things.  Semantics helps you find concepts even when there are not exact word matches. For example, you can find out how many sub-prime mortgages are in your loan portfolio even if they not are labeled that way. You define the characteristics and then find them. Here is a paper on semantic technologies and ontologies. 

The panel moved to semantics in the enterprise. There have been a number of successful examples where you can use a computer to connect data in two different places. How do you know that different things are similar? This is the answer that semantic technologies can address. It is about understanding concepts. FAST was given as an example. Consulting companies are starting practices around implementing semantic technologies.  At Dow Jones they are seeing companies interested in making better use of existing data through semantic technologies..

Daniela Is hoping that semantic technologies will get implemented like wikis, start small and spread.  This will be better than starting big.  Michael said that ontologies can grow over time. 

Some one asked what is new about semantic technologies? Daniela said the open vs. closed concept.  You can find better connections now. Companies do not know they are already part way there so some stuff is not new.  Now you can get your siloed data connecting and get better access to data outside the enterprise. Semantic technologies are trying to find structure in data where it does not explicitly exist in the same way a person might.

Merck is using semantic technologies to automate the integration of research results from three different relational databases and several spread sheets so they can be uploaded into a common database. Prior to this people had to cut and paste content by hand into a template for the upload.

Semantic technologies support discovery in contrast to simple search when you know what you are looking for. There remains a lot to do to improve the interfaces of semantic technology tools. 

While thousands of companies have either experimental or well-established presence on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other social media sites, those communities remain invisible on all but a tiny fraction of company homepages.

Why do companies hide their social media efforts from visitors?

My guess is that their reasons include
o fear that they'll lose control of their brand if too many people know they can have a say;
o lack of cooperation between marketing and IT;
o and perhaps pressure from lawyers who are nervous about new-fangled new media.

It's hard to find a company website whose homepage easily and clearly allows visitors to see all of the its social media initiatives. You'd have to be Nancy Drew to find the company blog on most websites, or its Facebook page, or all of its YouTube videos.

Starbucks new homepage, recently re-designed, stands head and shoulders above the rest for clarity, ease of use and organization. Clean and clear, it has a community heading above the fold, and clearly lists Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, among other links.

A few companies try to curate their content effectively, including:
o Dell tries, although you have to click into Community to find them on Twitter, Facebook, and so on;
o HP (although Connect with Others is a more than a little bit vague IMO).
o Zappos, whose CEO was a Twitter pioneer, has absolutely no indication of its community features on its homepage, although its new Zeta site, now in beta, includes an area about the company culture that will lead you to company blogs. But you still have to look hard to find it.
o On Walmart's site you have to scroll to the bottom of the homepage, and there's something called Connect and Share, which leads you, via the headline "Connect with other customers like you" (whatever that means,) eventually, to the company blogs, etc.

The more things change....
Back in 2006, i wondered why companies were hiding their blogs. Most still don't feature them prominently on the homepage, and I think the reasons are still the same:

"Literally thousands of CEOs, marketing officers, analysts, engineers and other corporate employees are blogging. Yet you'll be hard-pressed to find most corporate blogs through the company web sites. My guess is that lawyers or PR departments are a more than a little nervous about this whole new media, "listen to your customers" thing, so they said "Well, ok, we can try it, but don't make the damn blog too easy to find."

"... that is one way to avoid having to face critical comments on your blog!"

• More than nine in ten respondents form the New Symbiosis of Professional Networks research study indicated that they use LinkedIn and half reported using Facebook
• Interestingly, Twitter and blogs were frequently listed as ‘professional networks’
• Hundreds of other networks were mentioned, many by only one or two respondents

Note: N = 356. Respondents were asked to fill in top 5 professional networks

• LinkedIn: LinkedIn has approximately 50 million users worldwide in 200 countries. The membership on LinkedIn is growing at roughly one new member per second. When LinkedIn launched in 2003, it took 477 days, almost a year and four months to reach the first million members. The last million took only 12 days. Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are LinkedIn members.
  
  
• Facebook: Facebook has over 300 million members with 150 million that log in at least once per day. The fastest growing demographic on Facebook are 35 years and older and according to Facebook more than 2 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared across the network, each week.
  
  
• Twitter: Twitter has more than 32 million members with the segment of 45-54 year olds being the top demographic and 25-34 year olds following closely behind at second. It has been found in other studies that baby boomers and senior citizens are more likely to join Twitter than their grandchildren.
  

• Close to a quarter (23%) of respondents identified themselves as CEO of their organization; 50% as “Director” (24%) “Manager” (24%)
• Company size ranged from less than 100 to over 50,000 full-time employees
• Age was well distributed with the greatest proportion in the 36-45 range
• 25 countries were represented, with 58% of respondents living in the US
• All respondents were either the decision makers or influenced the decision process within their company or business unit

Metaphors and stories are powerful things - far better than numbers at showing how powerful human interactions can be and how much they impact the world at large - or sometimes in the small.

When it comes to Social CRM, one thing that we've been saying over and over is that Gen Y drove the changes but they aren't exclusive to their effects or use. In fact, the generation that follows Gen Y is even more savvy than the echo boomers themselves. They are multitaskers who didn't know a day without the Internet or a computer - not a single day.

So, due to an extraordinary circumstance and Facebook, I'm going to let one of these younger-than-Yers tell you a story about something he did.

This is Rio Bowerman, folks. Rio is the son of Elissa Amoroso Bowerman who was a neighbor of mine when we grew up as kids in East Meadow NY. Due to Facebook and fortuitous circumstance, I had the opportunity to meet with Elissa and hang out with her for awhile when I was at the Gartner Summit in Scottsdale a few months ago. In the course of this lovely hour or so, I got the chance to meet her son Rio who has quite a history already though he's only 18. He was Chef Rio and on national TV from the ages of 11-13. You can see him on YouTube right here with his appearance on Bonnie Hunt's show when he was 16 to get an idea of how precociously bright he really is.

But aside from my personal affection for him, he is someone who not only gets what's going on out there and at 18 has applied it to business, but he reflects what all us pundit types have been saying for a long time now - this is something that the younger gens not only use, they live it.

Rio's story starts with DECA which stands for Distributive Education Clubs of America (Delta Epsilon Chi). He is the Chapter President for the State of Arizona and has had the chapter competing in marketing competitions for about 3 years on every level from state to international. Usually, his results are stellar - from 1st to 3rd in most of the competitions.

But all that competing takes funds and Arizona's DECA chapter seems to be consistent in trying to make their own $$$. So how do they do it? Listen to this story straight from Rio.

First, Let me introduce my self. My name is Rio Bowerman. I'm an 18 year old Senior attending Chaparral High School in sunny Scottsdale, Arizona and I have the challenge and thrill of being president of Chaparrals' DECA chapter.

What is DECA? That question is asked over and over. Technically DECA translates to Delta Epsilon Chi originally "Distributive educational Club Of America". DECA just happens to be the largest student organization which far exceeds the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and the FFA. DECA is jam packed nationally and internationally, with highly motivated business and marketing students. Major competitions noted on our yearly calendar, and only the strong and brilliant survive to move on to the next level.

Now let me tell you about the real Meat and Potatoes... My school store (its something like a convenience store on campus). We were gifted the honor of having a $750,000 flagship student store, from the Scottsdale Unified School District. They were engaging on a huge High School campus renovation campaign, and our school was considered the perfect candidate. Keep in mind that prior to this Flagship opportunity, we were selling Arizona Iced Tea's and Energy drinks out of a literal "hole" (made) in the wall of our marketing classroom. But now we use our near 100k/Year business to bankroll all of our competitions, lodging, entry fee's, food, seminars, entertaining/schmoozing (other chapters and administrators) and all of the other fun endeavors we enjoy and have become ever so accustomed to.

Moving On…

Here's how we did it...and made it a success… We decided to try some form of social networking (A.K.A FaceBook). The time it took to set up a Chaparral DECA Fan Page on FaceBook, took no time at all and cost us not one single penny... The one and only investment was our time! FaceBook provides students with information on our store's menu, pricing, discount coupons, Chapter information, and the schedule for Chapter meetings… All actively and socially engaging our customers. Reaching members of the Chaparral network (approx.4,500 students ) we quickly adopted well over 200 followers subscribing on their own (from our school) with sales doubling within the first 3 days.…

No joke! (Talk about one hell of an ROI)!!

The second phase in conjunction with our FaceBook, based our promotional mix, was to execute a mass SMS blanket of the Chaparral students. We did this by taking all the marketing/business students and having them send out a mass TXT saying something like "25% off in the student store with tons of new products. Stop by today at lunch". From that point…(once the inaugural message was sent,) students came running in the store, holding there phones as if they contained some golden ticket... and for us...the mass SMS was our golden ticket...that simple TXT held the power for that "One Day Only" discount coupon. Between establishing a FaceBook, and getting the SMS campaign off the ground we had created a HUGE promotional campaign tailored directly to the student body.

Allow me to reiterate: The best part of this success is the fact that neither of these INCREDIBLE avenues of social networking cost us not one cent! Ever since then we've had more business then we can shake a stick at… our business increased by 52% from $250/Day to $450/day (not bad for a few kids selling snacks during two 40 minute long lunch's) Coincidence… I think not.

There you have it. Simple and straightforward. This is something that is part of the genetic code and the brain cells of generations coming up behind us. Granted, Rio is a bit on the exceptional side. But he's not the only one doing this. This is what the revolution in communications, the social revolution that led to the customer ecosystem, spawned. And we're the luckier for it. But pay attention Kids are already starting to conduct their businesses this way. Question is, are you?

Spam- by David, on Flickr.

Joining a LinkedIn group gives you the opportunity to communicate with other members of the group and also to post your content there. My associate was thrilled to find another place to put links to his site.

While this can indeed be a nice platform for receiving quality traffic, from a well targeted group of professionals, this approach doesn’t always satisfy the group administrators.

The big mistake that he did was not to read the rules. The group rules strictly stated no links! I believe that if you’re a veteran member of such a group, and you make such a sin as leaving a link in the discussion board, you’ll probably be forgiven.

Well, my associate was not only hasty not to read the rules, but posted the link within hours of joining the group. This behavior was considered spammy by the group’s administrator, that used the strongest possible sanction: a ban from the group.

Not only did my associate lose his chance to post links there, he’ll have a much harder time to network with the group’s members, now that he’s sitting in the corner.

The lesson to everybody is: Don’t come too strong! This lesson is good for LinkedIn groups as well as for other social media sites and for face to face meetings. Take things gradually. Don’t push your counterpart…

Further reading: Keith Swenson writes about a new kind of spam in LinkedIn groups.

Some of the points we discussed that evening are outlined below.

Harsh reality 1: Goals attempt to be strategic BUT…
John F. Kennedy once said: “In a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.”

For corporate strategy, this means once employees understand it they need to put their heart into reaching the targets. Our first attempt to master this challenge resulted in failing in our first strategic objective.

Attempt 1: Reaching out to customers with the help of SM.

We learned a few months down the road that we had not spent enough time developing a strategic goal suited to us. We tried again as shown below.

Attempt 1a: SM should help improve client and potential customer engagement.

Harsh reality 2: Developing comprehensive objectives takes time
The revised objective above made more sense, but the next reality check came with having to formulate up to three KPIs that would align with our SM strategy.

For this we needed to define objectives that address these issues:

- what objectives need to be accomplished (spell it out)?
- what quantity is expected?
- what time-frame will be looked at?
- what quality level represents acceptable performance (define quality, please)?
- what kind of budget are we talking about (human resources and money)?

Considering our revised strategic objective, we specified the following:

Objective for SM: We want to improve the number and quality of blog comments we get in the next four months. We budget about fours hours to write and prepare each blog post (i.e. we post twice a week).

Sounds simple, but you have to identify what you mean by quality regarding comments. For instance, is it based on the number of words in each comment, links to posts or white papers elsewhere on the web, or something altogether different? (See also: KPI experts’ 5 secrets.)

Harsh reality 3: Did you remember your baseline?
As the above outlines, two to three KPIs or objectives must be identified and spelled out properly. But in order to monitor your KPIs, you need a baseline to start with, which is a picture of your blog and its ‘vital’ statistics at a certain point in time.

Without the Baseline you have nothing to measure against and little, if any, control of your blog project and the progress you want to make.

With the baseline you can start to compare your performance improvements over time and show how you are getting better at your job…

Reality check: Because we thought fixing other things was more important than watching trends, we did not calculate the baseline at the beginning of the project. WRONG! Trend watching loses relevance if you cannot trace things all the way back. Calculate the baseline as early and quickly as possible, and watch the trend like a hawk from the beginning.

Harsh reality 4: Using the wrong benchmark measure is expensive
According to the dictionary,

Return on Investment (ROI) is a measure of a company’s profitability, equal to a fiscal year’s income divided by equity and long-term debt; and,
ROI measures how effectively the organization is using its resources to generate a financial profit.

Some experts suggest that we link SM expenditures to how they affect sales, or improve average sale value and reduce service center costs. This is then supposed to help us measure ROI. Unfortunately, it fails.

For instance, how can one show that social media has increased sales? Dell tried to do so with its Twitter tweets about special offers. But neither they nor anybody else can show beyond a reasonable doubt that such efforts actually increased sales, rather than simply cannibalizing other channels.

Reality check: Last week I had lunch with a client who engaged me in a lively discussion about one of my blog posts he had read.

This could be one of the qualitative indicators for social media campaigns - how to measure soft ROI (check the examples from her job) that may not be part of ROI but part of the KPIs for assessing benefits attained with social media, such as gaining expert status and trust with clients.

More resources on how to measure ROI for social media:

Jeff Bullas: 8 steps to demonstrate positive return on investment for social media marketing
Don Bartholomew: Social Media ROI Part 1: Framework
Erik Qualman: Video - Social media ROI: Socialnomics – this is GREAT, it explains why ROI fails to work…

Bottom line
By New Year’s Eve we will once again have resolved to better measure our SM efforts in 2010. I suggest you start now with these pointers.

Take-aways (in random order)

1. Use statistics to compare to traditional media: Remember, clicks seem to garner the most appreciation from the c-suite for what Social Media can give in terms of cost-benefit analysis.
2. Set 2-3 comprehensive goals for 2010: Clicks, views, sales re-tweets (RTs), lead generation and so forth – establish a baseline for December and watch the trends go in the right direction.
3. Cost-benefit analysis is required: Use quantitative as well as qualitative/soft measures. Develop KPIs that make sense and your stakeholders find relevant.

One thing we know is that measuring social media ‘buzz’ is probably about as difficult as measuring PR ‘media impressions’.

And keep Maddie Grant’s insight in mind when addressing cost-benefit issues of ROI, namely:

“I think while we’re all continuing to think a lot about this issue, it’s becoming less and less about simply proving our case to the powers that be and more and more about finding a simple, replicable system for what’s worth measuring and why.”

Please, leave a comment! We love to hear your thoughts: how do you think costs and benefits from SM activities like using Twitter or blogging should be measured? Here is a chance for anyone with first-hand knowledge (this means you!) to share your insights. How does your company do this?

“Whether you have a million readers or just a dozen,” goes the refrain, “your voice is just as important.”

That’s a very nice, warm and comfortable notion.

But it’s wrong.

The plain truth of it all when it comes to social media for your organization; some people matter, some people don’t.

Okay.  Now that we’ve broken the taboo and put that out there, let me see if I can speak over the din and wailing and gnashing of teeth in order to clarify.

Communications and Marketing do not have unlimited funds and one-on-one relationships can scale only so far.  You want to leverage the network of the people you build relationships with to act as an amplifier for your message and to serve as a qualified filter for information flowing back into the organization.

Don’t get me wrong, if there is a real problem being discussed online, then it doesn’t matter who points it out, you need to act as soon as you can to fix it.  But as anyone in customer relations can tell you, there are legitimate complaints and then there’s whinging, whining and just plain old trolling.  With limited time, money and staff you want to be sure that you don’t get sucked into arguing with every person on the Internet with an opinion and a blog.

Consider: Is the complaint arising from a customer?  Do they speak directly to your customers?  Is there any chance on this great, green earth that they or their audience could EVER be your customer?  No?  Well then shuffle them to the bottom of the queue.  It’s okay.  Really.

When you have a message to communicate, you are looking to get that message as far and wide as you can.  Who do you want delivering that message: a blogger with one hundred readers or a blogger with a hundred-thousand readers?  Or better still, a blogger whose audience consists of several bloggers with a hundred-thousand readers.

You want your message to be in context and to come from someone with credibility on that subject.  Now a blogger like CC Chapman, Chris Brogan or Mitch Joel could blog at length about the benefits of using some brand of organic yarn in knitted goods and a sizable audience would see that message. But I question how many of their readers would actually be interested in, let alone accept their opinion on the matter.  Were I counseling a manufacturer of yarn on social media, I would suggest that a post from Amy at Indigirl holds much more weight than a post from CC, Chris or Mitch.

Talking in the abstract, it’s easy to toss around platitudes about connecting with everyone.  But for anyone with a budget to manage, prioritizing who you connect with is key.

• Is social media typically regarded as a trustworthy source of information for professionals?
• Does social media offer effective tools to access information, advice and engage in professional collaboration? How do they compare to traditional off-line networking?
• What are the tools and sources of social media that professionals rely on to make decisions?
• Will social media change the business and practice of enterprise-level operations?

• Close to a quarter (23%) of respondents identified themselves as CEO of their organization; 50% as “Director” (24%) “Manager” (24%)
• Company size ranged from less than 100 to over 50,000 full-time employees
• Age was well distributed with the greatest proportion in the 36-45 range
• 25 countries were represented, with 58% of respondents living in the US
• All respondents were either the decision makers or influenced the decision process within their company or business unit

• Traditional influence cycles are being disrupted by Social Media as decision makers utilize social networks to inform and validate decisions
• Professionals want to be collaborative in the decision-cycle but not be marketed or sold to online; however online marketing is a preferred activity by companies.

• The average professional belongs to 3-5 online networks for business use, and LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter are among the top used.
• The convergence of Internet, mobile, and social media has taken significant shape as professionals rely on anywhere access to information, relationships and networks

• Decision-makers are broadening reach to gather information especially among active users

• Information obtained from offline networks still have highest levels of trust with slight advantage over online (offline: 92% - combined strongly/somewhat trust; online: 83% combined strongly/somewhat trust)

• Three quarters of respondents rely on professional networks to support business decisions
• Reliance has increased for essentially all respondents over the past three years

• Younger (20-35) and older professionals (55+) are more active users of social tools than middle aged professionals.
• There are more people collaborating outside their company wall than within their organizational intranet

• The era of Social Media Peer Group (SMPG) has arrived and information will travel at a business velocity that has never been seen before enabled by the Internet and Web 2.0 technologies.

• Traditional cycles of decision-making are being disrupted by SMPG
• Managing and influencing professional decision-making will be the major challenge as professionals often do not seek the information that marketers want to share online.

Social media is just one of the tools that I use on a daily basis. To focus on just that and make it my identity would be like calling a runner a "sneaker guy." They might love their sneakers, but it's still the method they use to get from where they are to where they want to be. The way I use social media is similar ... I use it for marketing. I'm a marketing guy first and foremost. It's why my blog is called Influential Marketing and why you won't ever hear my introduce myself as an expert in social media. I use it often, and do know what I'm doing - but my expertise and my career is in marketing.

Here's a highlight from the Inc 500 report