Jeff observes that at least we can get some trending data from the existing tools, but the art & science of tone / sentiment analysis is still fairly human-centric and that organization would do well to put a person into the process.  The vagaries of language, jargon and the constantly evolving nature of slang will make this a task fit for human for quite some time to come. 

Where is Twitalyzer going and what’s keeping them up at night? The biggest concern for Twitalyzer is handling the continuing changes pouring out from the data providers, but they’re confident that the challenge is manageable and it is the work they are about.  Twitalyzer recognizes their part in answering the question of how social media is used for business and Jeff cites that social media analytics tools are at about the same place web analytics tools were about 5-10 years ago – growing fast and changing often.

Social media for business is growing and entering the main stream for businesses small and larger alike.  The tactics vary but the premise is the same and that is to connect with your customers and pay attention to the conversation.  Where Twitalyzer comes in is in being able to segment out the real influencers in the community and making sure the conversations stay relevant.

Play / Download Jeff Katz / Twitalyzer Episode 3 Podcast Here 

To get a hold of Twitalyzer, look at their website, www.Twitalyzer.com, you can reach Jeff directly at jeff@twitalyzer.com and he is on Twitter as @katzpdx.

This is the final episode of the three part podcast with Jeff.  Guy Powell and I want to thank him; we appreciate his perspective and taking the time to share it with us in our podcast interview!

Here are links to material related to the interview that you may find useful; the entire conversation in one extended recording and soon, a transcript of the conversation

Play / Download Jeff Katz / Twitalyzer Entire Episode Podcast Here

Read / view the Jeff Katz / Twitalyzer Podcast Transcript at Scribd.com

We’re very interested in your perspective on the topic and, if you have a favored presenter or person who can add to the conversation, please let us know – we’re looking to interview him / her and put it up here!

Thank you again to you our listeners – hope you enjoyed the effort and work we put into it!

The Podcast and Credit For Where Credit is Due – This podcast / transcript was developed from a live interview on January 19, 2010 between Jeff Katz of Twitalyzer, Guy Powell and Steven Groves using FreeConferenceCall.com.

The podcast interview was downloaded and processes in Audacity, which is available from SourceForge.com, and with ‘4toFloor.wav’ music loop from member ‘Rooks’ and posted at SoundSnap.com.

The transcripts are provided by Social Marketing Conversations and the Introduction Voice Talent is Ms. Cynthia Propst.

Related posts:

• Social Marketing Benefits from Goal Setting, Planning and Benchmarking – Twitalyzer Supplies the Data
• If You Use Twitter for Marketing, Twitalyzer Delivers “Serious Analytics”
• The ROI of Social Media Series – Mike Talbot and Aaron Newman / Alterian SM2 – Episode 6 of 6

Sessions has a year-round (3 semesters) enrollment model, graduation certificates that are presented monthly and classes that can be enrolled in anytime for enrolled students.  So his use is everyday for the various tools Session employs (blog, micro-blog and social networks) to connection to the audience.

What’s the biggest obstacles for the growth of social media presence for Sessions?  Scott says ‘patience’, he sees the the education product characteristics is not the commodity of a fast moving consumer good with a low price point.  His effort is to get subscribers to engage in all areas in a way that they appreciate and have a value associated with the Sessions brand.

Scott has determined that for Sessions, there is a way to use social media to establish a lifetime value with the audience – education is pretty much a one-shot sale in most cases.  The maturation of the relationship allows a prospect for Session.edu to become a student, attend classes and graduate into the business community.  At some point he can trust alumni to evangelize the Sessions.edu product and he does not find that they need to scrub or moderate content.

Community members come to the Sessions presence on Facebook, he has to be sensitive that they may all come for different reasons; some are prospects and others are graduates – it’s why the Facebook audience gets a cultural message in that channel and not a selling message.  They do then migrate the graduate user base to another social network, one more business oriented.

What does Scott identify as key tactics to designing a successful social media presence? 

• Quality vs. quantity needs to be a central objective 
• Sincerity is important
• It’s called social media for a reason, business need not abuse the trust the consumers gives you 
• Be persistent – social media is not a set and forget proposition
• Tactically, don’t over think it – get the content out there, do a soft launch and get started

Play / Download Scott Chappell / Session College Episode 2 Podcast Here

You can find Session College at Sessions.edu and Scott is available at scott@sessions.edu.

This is the final episode of the two part podcast with Scott Chappell.  Guy Powell and I want to thank him; we appreciate his perspective and taking the time to share it with us in our podcast interview!

Here are links to material related to the interview that you may find useful; the entire conversation in one extended recording and soon, a transcript of the conversation

Play / Download Scott Chappell / Sessions College Entire Episode Podcast Here

Read / view the Scott Chappell / Sessions College Podcast Transcript at Scribd.com

We’re very interested in your perspective on the topic and, if you have a favored presenter or person who can add to the conversation, please let us know – we’re looking to interview him / her and put it up here!

Thank you again to you our listeners – hope you enjoyed the effort and work we put into it!

The Podcast and Credit For Where Credit is Due – This transcript was developed from a live interview on Wednesday, February 3, 2010 between Scott Chappell, Guy Powell and Steven Groves using FreeConferenceCall.com.

The podcast interview was downloaded and processes in Audacity, which is available from SourceForge.com, and with ‘4toFloor.wav’ music loop from member ‘Rooks’ and posted at SoundSnap.com.

The transcripts are provided courtesy of Institute for International Research, the organizers of the MeasureUp Conference.

The Introduction Voice Talent is Ms. Cynthia Propst.

Related posts:

• Increase Touch and Engagement Using Social Marketing – Scott Chappell / Sessions College Podcast Interview
• The ROI of Social Media Series – Marcel LeBrun CEO of Radian6 Podcast Episode 3
• Managing Hundreds of Millions of Messages – Microsoft Marketing in AsiaPac

Scott talks about how social media is used by Sessions.edu and how it has supported an almost 10 fold expansion of the number of monthly ‘touches’ with the Sessions Design College audience of prospective student, current students and graduated alumni.  Scott explains how he has embraced the premise of Marshall McLuhan in that “the medium is the message”, but he cautions that too many contacts to an audience can cause them to disengage.  In Sessions case, while social media has allowed them to dramatically increase the number of messages, the reality is that there needs to be quality and sincerity otherwise you run the risk of turning off the audience.

The biggest understanding that has come from the use of social media is that a successful launch has to be gradual and that he needed to segment the conversation to be able to increase the touch points.  Sessions.edu established messaging in three different categories – Culture, Industry & Sell.  With this segmented messaging schema, Scott talks about how each has a particular characteristic and supports a conversation or connection in a specific area of the relationship with the audience.  The recipients have been very open to the connections because each communication is about something different and Scott says it has ‘enriched the conversation’ and allowed the brand to flourish.

Under lessons learned, he cites trying to use every social tool for everything – he’s come to recognize that the content has to match the discussion and the relationship you want to have with your audience.  He suggests that your listeners, followers, and community members need to get something from the conversation and that is a more a function of the quality of the conversation and message than the quantity of messages delivered.

Play / Download Scott Chappell / Sessions College Episode 1 Podcast Here

To get our posts as they happen, follow us on Twitter (@ROISocialMedia) or subscribe to SocialMarketingConversations.com via email or your RSS Reader.

To support the effort in uncovering the ROI question in social media, we’ve set up a Fan Page at Facebook, and a LinkedIn Group.  Come join us and let us know what the pressing issues are in your efforts to determine an ROI in your social media presence!

Related posts:

• 5 Key Tactics to a Successful Social Presence – Scott Chappell / Sessions College Podcast Part 2 of 2
• Why Social Media is Not Just a Gimmick for Dell SMB
• Can You be Cool Without an iPhone?

If you would have told me a year ago that a 90 year old company would be an innovator in enterprise social media, I’m pretty sure I would not have believed you.  After the time spent with Aneta, I can tell you that a 90 year old company is being really innovative in the enterprise deployment of social media and they’re showing a measureable ROI.

In the last two episodes we’ve covered elements of how PB has done it too.  First, they approached it from an understanding that social media is not a set-and-forget proposition; they recognized a need for needed a sustainable program that at the same time, did not inhibit individual participation.  They also understood that they needed to put some tools in place, watch key performance indicators (KPIs) and apply metrics, looking for the ROI; those efforts have led to a $300K saving in call-center deflections in a 3 month period.

I know that Guy and I are looking forward to connecting with her at the MeasureUp event in Chicago next month and to put a live presence with the enthusiastic personality she has  shown in the podcast series here.

In this episode Aneta lets us know that while they do set certain measures and metrics in place, they are certainly open to evaluating them and updating policy as PB learns what actually makes a difference to their customers and to the bottom line.   We open the discussion referring to the Twitter, Facebook and online forums that PB maintains, but Aneta tells us that social media at PB is not about an overarching corporate social presence. At the end of the day social media is about people connecting to people, and it needs to be a sustainable level of one-on-one social media interactions with PB employees taking the lead.

Aneta shares that she approaches her responsibility as someone whose job it is to think differently, a little outside the box, and to be a guide for PB to a more social future.  This perspective is what constitutes her biggest responsibility in working supporting the PB business units.  He position is not to handle the effort herself; she focuses in on strategy, training and supporting the PB staff, the business units get to decide how and where in the social media ecosphere to reach out to their audience.

We close this three part series with Aneta sharing aspects of the process of social media measurement at PB.  As she sees it, the situation is similar to the early 90’s when corporations struggled to understand how best to develop and present a web presence; she suggests that right now is the time to establish a presence, explore the environment and measurement best practices.  Companies who do so today, and periodically adjust their business model along the way are going to be the winners in the new market model supported by social media.

She and the team can be found at Pitney Bowes on Facebook, @PBNews, @PBConnect and @AnetaH on Twitter, and she blogs at AnetaHall.com.    As we wrap up she disclosers her passion (and addiction) to social media and how she looks forward to the time in between session at the upcoming MeasureUp conference, after all, that is where the real connections get made a conferences don’t they!

Play / Download Aneta Hall / Pitney Bowes Episode 3 Podcast Here

This is the final episode of the three part podcast with Aneta Hall.  Guy Powell and I want to thank her; we appreciate her perspective and taking the time to share it with us in our podcast interview!

Here are links to material related to the interview that you may find useful; the entire conversation in one extended recording and soon, a transcript of the conversation

Play / Download Aneta Hall / Pitney Bowes Entire Episode Podcast Here

Read / view the Aneta Hall / Pitney Bowes Podcast Transcript at Scribd.com

We’re very interested in your perspective on the topic and, if you have a favored presenter or person who can add to the conversation, please let us know – we’re looking to interview him / her and put it up here!

Thank you again to you our listeners – hope you enjoyed the effort and work we put into it!

the Podcast and Credit For Where Credit is Due – This transcript was developed from a live interview on Thursday, February 4, 2010 between Aneta Hall, Guy Powell and Steven Groves using FreeConferenceCall.com.

The podcast interview was downloaded and processes in Audacity, which is available from SourceForge.com, and with ‘4toFloor.wav’ music loop from member ‘Rooks’ and posted at SoundSnap.com.

The transcripts are provided courtesy of Institute for International Research, the organizers of the MeasureUp Conference.

The Introduction Voice talent is Ms. Cynthia Propst.

Related posts:

• Creating Sustainability and Providing Loose Governance Essential for Enterprise Social Media – An Interview with Aneta Hall / Pitney Bowes – Podcast Episode 1
• A 3-Tiered Model for Measuring Social Media Success and How Social Media Saved Pitney Bowes $300K – An Interview with Aneta Hall / Pitney Bowes – Podcast Episode 2
• Increase Touch and Engagement Using Social Marketing – Scott Chappell / Sessions College Podcast Interview

The first is the booming growth in the adoption of mobile, their application for placing orders on a variety of mobile platforms is growing rapidly.  Today you can use your Blackberry, Android, or iPhone to place an order from the 1800Flowers.com Mobile Gift Center in several categories for personal or business.

1800Flowers.com has not been afraid to try out new ideas has often been a first mover in many areas to stay connected to their audience and they try a lot of things, sometime uncertain of the outcome; case in point was the effort in creating a 1800Flowers.com store in the 3D social platform of Second Life, which they discovered was not the right platform at the time to connect them to their audience.

A success is the development of the ideal customer model, which they have named ‘Tina’. Tina is the aggregate persona of the ideal 1800Flowers.com customer, which embodies the characteristics of the buying behavior they see in the market overall.  Lewis shows us how they referenced Tina in the ‘Spot-a-Mom’ campaign leading up to Mothers Day in 2009.

To begin with, you need to know that Mothers Day is one of the two largest holidays for florists all year – Christmas is a bit bigger in terms of number of people ordering flowers and Valentines Day is third.   I know some of this because my Mother was an award winning florist and we always knew that during the big floral holidays, we were not going to see Mom for the weeks leading up to the holiday.

For Mothers Day 2009, 1800Flowers.com wanted to make sure that there was ‘No Mom Left Behind’, that all Mom’s, regardless of how they came by the title, we’re recognized with a gift.   Leveraging the 1800Flowers blog by Floral Lifestyle Expert Julie Mulligan, and with support by their PR organization, they undertook an outreach program 6 weeks before the holiday.  In the effort, they identified several types of bloggers, reached out to them and gave those bloggers a reason to talk to their readership regarding 1800Flowers.com.   By the time the holiday came around, they estimate that they had touched around 6 million prospective customer, even before they started the formal advertising campaign, and the net result was increased sales and more sales earlier than ever before.

When we asked ‘What metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) does 1800Flowers track ?’, Lewis tells us that there are three primarily -

• With sales revenue as a primary objective, they use promotion codes extensively.  A set of codes are given to partners, those partners can then provide them to their audience, and as an incentive for the consumer to use the code, it also provides a discount on a 1800Flowers.com order.
• A second measure is ‘untagged’ traffic.  This is the number of visitors to the site that have not been referred or do not use a promotion code, and
• the third is a ‘share of mind’ or the number of discussion going on about 1800Flowers.com vs. key competitors in the social media ecosphere

Twitter use is growing for them as well.  They have over 50 CSR on Twitter and part of their job is to look for people who have issues in their use of 1800Flowers and tweet some comment about it.  Lewis talks about how they set up the first-responder program, again just prior to the 2009 Mothers Day holiday and what their results were.  As a measure of the success of the program, they evaluated the tone and sentiment of messages in the week following the holiday and they found that of all the mentions on customers experiences around flowers and florists, around 2/3 were positive for 1800Flowers.com and in comparison, 3/4 of the comments made about a major competitor ranked negative.  A definitive measure?  No, but certainly it shows that 1800Flowers is listening and that the ability to provide a first responder capability can impact market perception.

Lewis wraps up the conversation explaining how they have implemented 3 Twitter channels, each focusing on a different type of conversation – one for communication / interactive (marketing & branding), one for customer service, and one as a discount channel.  The discount channel helps move perishable inventory at a savings for the customer and at a profit for 1800Flowers.com that might have been otherwise been taken as waste / shrinkage.

Play / Download Lewis Goldman / 1800Flowers.com Episode 2 Podcast Here

Our first episode with Lewis Goldman of 1800Flowers.com was well visited; here is the second and final episode, as well as the entire interview in a single podcast.  We’ll post the transcript as it becomes available – Guy Powell and I want to get the podcasts of the MeasureUp Conference speakers we were able to interview posted right away.  To get the updates to the posts as they happen, follow us on Twitter (@ROISocialMedia) or subscribe to StevenGroves.com via email or your RSS Reader.

To support the effort in uncovering the ROI question in social media, we’ve set up a Fan Page at Facebook, and a LinkedIn Group.  Come join us and let us know what the pressing issues are in your efforts to determine an ROI in your social media presence!

Here are links to material related to the interview that you may find useful; the entire conversation in one extended recording and soon, a transcript of the conversation (Update – 02/13/2010 – Transcript Posted)

Play / Download Lewis Goldman / 1800Flowers.com Entire Episode Podcast Here

View / Download Lewis Goldman / 1800Flowers.com Podcast Transcript at Scribd

We’re very interested in your perspective on the topic and, if you have a favored presenter or person who can add to the conversation, please let us know – we’re looking to interview him / her and put it up here!

Thank you again to you our listeners – hope you enjoyed the effort and work we put into it!

About the Podcast and Credit For Where Credit is Due – This transcript was developed from a live interview on Wednesday February 3, 2010 between Lewis Goldman, Guy Powell and Steven Groves on FreeConferenceCall.com.

The podcast interview was downloaded and processes in Audacity, which is available from SourceForge.com, and with ‘4toFloor.wav’ music loop from member ‘Rooks’ and posted at SoundSnap.com.

Introduction voice is Cynthia Propst.

Related posts:

• Social Media and e-Commerce: Fad or Fundamental Change? An Interview with Lewis Goldman of 1800Flowers.com
• What the 5 Customer Value Drivers and Top 5 Metrics are for the Dell SMB Social Presence
• The ROI of Social media Series – Marcel LeBrun CEO Radian6 Episode 5 – Final Episode

These options assume a text blog, but even if it is a video blog or any other type of social platform, we agree that the actions that might be taken are not infinite. 

Is One Action More Valuable Than Another? I think so.  Subscribing to a blog, or opting-in to receive more content from the same author or source, is a much higher value action than just dropping in to consume a single article.  Thinking enough of the content or the author to share with others in your network begins to establish you as an advocate of the content, not just a visitor that consumes the content – this is a holy grail of online marketing, to have advocates for your brand, not just consumers of your content.

The process that takes a content consumer from one level to another is worthy of evaluation by the marketing community and as the content consumer moves along the continuum, ranking the value of one activity over another becomes meaningful.

Why Try to Establish The Value of an Activity or Mention? By assigning a value to the activity, you can develop a more easily conveyed ‘score’ that allows you to determine in non-financial terms, how well you are doing in the effort to leverage social media as a marketing tactic.  The score needs to be couched with other data I imagine, such as number of posts contained in the score and some factor that recognizes the age of the post, but if we are intent on establishing an ROI at some point of the effort, this kind of key indicator data serves a meaningful purpose.

Meet the Social Interaction Scoring Table.  My associate, Guy Powell and I have been discussing and working on the ROI of Social Media and during the conversation this notion came to me.  From that point I developed this table as an example of the scoring that might apply to not just a blog post, but a wide variety of social media platforms.

I share it here for your comment and to open a community dialog on the concept of being able to score the Social Interaction and how it begins to support the process of measuring mentions.

Related posts:

• Coffee Shop Social Media Case Study – How to Give Away A Product and Get Results
• The ROI of Social Media Series – Mike Talbot and Aaron Newman / Alterian SM2 – Episode 3
• Twitter’s Social Capital is Unlimited – Joe Jaffe is wrong…

One of those tactics is a drawing or door-prize that uses a contest model.  The conversation on how to develop an online contest has come often enough and over the holiday break, I took the time to use my favorite ideation tool to develop a model.

There are two legs to this model – one is low ‘hard cost’ and just requires a good deal of manual labor to implement, monitor and manage.  The second leg assumes most all of what is in the first, but allows for a more robust implementation assuming a funded budget for custom programming and monitoring tools.

What would be the results of this kind of a campaign?

• Increased awareness of the brand / message
• Increased followers / fans
• Some combination of the two

How would you determine the ROI of the effort? Begin with tracking the initial investments and setting the baseline of what’s happening now.  Establish what a success looks like and monitor measure and readjust as needed.

There are probably a few more aspect than I have considered here though – what would you add?

The model used MindManager from Mindjet to create the Mind Map of the Online Contest Model.  Make sure you are current with Adobe Acrobat8 and Flash9 installed and this mind map & player should work (MindJet requirements).  Mac users may have issues – contact me to send you the MindMap itself if you have the Mac version of MindManager.

FCC Disclaimer – TSMB Media is a registered reseller of Mindjets Mind Manager products and receives no remuneration / compensation

Related posts:

• 10 Things Social Media Will Not Do For You in Enterprise 2.0
• How Dell Does Online Media – The Four Pillars
• How Dell SMB Supports Customers in Diving Deep in Social Media

Today I had a follow up with my dermatologist and in my pleasure of a mostly clean bill of health, I tweeted “Skin Dr says I’m good! Just dry skin!” with in a few minutes I received the following -

The link led to their web page where I saw some pretty ugly pics of Infantile Eczema and how their 100% natural product benefited that poor pink baby.  I also learned that they are pretty good brand in the UK.  Hmm… I might try some of their stuff (never have before and do not have any of their products in my house).

What I also gained out of this was another case study on how to engage an audience.  Maybe not perfectly, but to me it was obvious they were listening to the social conversation at least.

I’ve tell business and brands that if you really want to connect to the audience, think for a moment about what it is your prospects are looking for, what condition or symptom they are trying to deal with when they might be looking for your product or service – when you uncover it, let them know you are open to the engagement.

In my case, I’m looking for a way to treat dry skin.  What if you sold aspirin?  Look for headaches / body pain.  Auto body repair? someone commenting that they’ve been in an accident (hmm… good topic for ambulance chasing lawyers too I suppose).

You get the idea – to paraphrase Wayne Gretsky “don’t go to where the puck is, skate to where the puck is going”.

Related posts:

• Social Media Here, Social Media there, Social Media Everywhere!
• Social Media for Business; Does it Equal Advertising?
• Social Media to be Adopted as an Enterprise Solution in 2010 – Isn’t it?

In my humble opinion, I’m seeing Horizon trying to put lipstick on this pig (which means trying to make an ugly situation look good without addressing the underlying cause).

Mandatory in a social media crisis containment scenario is they they mea culpa and admit an error. In the released statement, they show no remorse or contrition for their behavior or a willingness to try and make nice with Ms. Bonnen.

They suggest in their statement that Jeffery Michael’s comments were ‘taken out of context’ by the Sun-Times.  Not a bad tactic, I’d try to get a podcast / recording out containing the conversation with the reporter if it existed.

In their statement, they try to characterize their customer as the bad egg.  This again is their client, their consumer, and they shift blame to them for all this.  Did she really have a lawsuit already filed against Horizon?  Hmm… was this response then Horizon’s attempt to intimidate her into dropping the previous action?  Could be perceived that way I suppose.  Not enough details yet to make a call.  In any case, I am not sure I’d yet be willing to consider Horizon as my property management company if all they do is blame others – we all make mistakes.

What Horizon may not be getting a grip on is that regardless of the portion of fault that resides with the client, their consumer, it is they that will end up being seen as the Snidley Whiplash of this episode.

This reaction may not serve to remedy the loss of social capital they have already suffered, which will most likely lead to a loss of financial capital, but taking your medicine was never an easy thing to do and if you’ve always counted on traditional media tactics, understanding how best to employ the model of social media sometimes gets lost in the translation.

Horizons Press Release from their website (looks like it might be their first ever)

Horizon Realty Press Release

What Can They Do Now? Are there other tactics they might employ to get this issue out of the news or at least improve the companies image in the press as a ‘sue first’ company?

I think so, but they require honesty, transparency and a commitment to do what’s right – even if it hurts a bit.  Can Horizon still recover from this glaring faux pas of a very public customer relations situation gone bad?  If they keep thinking of social media as just another outlet for the same old message, maybe not.

Image by Coulas & Lourdes, Inc. 

Related posts:

• How Not to Handle a Social Media Infraction
• What the 5 Customer Value Drivers and Top 5 Metrics are for the Dell SMB Social Presence
• How Dell Does Online Media – The Four Pillars

I see it as particular to the timeline of an exchange or conversation and how it contributes to social capital.  The caveat is of course that no one strategy fits all companies.  If however you are not going to engage for a professionally developed social media strategy, this is a good one to cut your teeth on and get going.

The first point of the triangle is the blog.  Recently social media strategist have suggested that CEO’s and thought leaders might want to reconsider their use of the micro-blogging phenomenon, Twitter.   That’s because as valuable as a CEO’s time is, posting to a micro-blogging tool that is not indexed by search engines represents content that cannot be later referenced in the conversation with an audience.  A blog on the other hand will retain the conversation, search engines will find it and those that want to, will then be able to find the content via search, by referral or via direct reference by other sites. 

The blog is the component that represents the location on the web where you would want to to open or reply to conversations regarding your public strategy, the reasons you’ve invested in the products / services you have and the virtues of the organization (your organization) behind it – it’s the stuff you want the public to know about you, your product and your company. 

It’s also where you’ll respond to comments posted elsewhere that you want to reply to that require more than a few dozen words.  Lastly, and this is a point I’ve debated before with friends, pundits and followers, do not attempt to moderate the comments made to your blog.  You can always delete spam, remove rude remarks and ban people who cannot be civil.  An attempt to moderate a blog implies you do not trust your audience – a mistake when trust is the commodity you have to trade in a social media setting.

The second point of the trinity is micro-blogging.  A lot of life and business happens between the more formal blog posts you make.  Sprinkled into the millions of inane tweets are much more salient tweets that, in a well prepared social media strategy, could serve to connect you and your company to your prospects, customers and stakeholders.  One at a time, the tweets might be irrelevant, but taken in context they can present a more human image of you and what you’re trying to accomplish.  They might also support a powerful ROI, one modeled by Gary Vaynerchuk of WineLibrary.TV in his now famous comparison of direct mail, freeway billboard and micro-blogging-based campaign results.

The third point of the triangle is social networking.  You may find that one social network is insufficient to connect to the audience you’re targeting, or you may find that there is a special-built social network that is already targeting your audience.  A Pew Internet Study shows that the majority of Internet users are participants in social networks now and their use is growing.

The social network rounds out the model by enabling a conversation unfettered by you or your company.  Unfettered, but not unmonitored.  You want your users to be able to connect with one another in a place you can connect with them.  They are going to talk about you, your product and your brand – there is just no stopping it.  By providing a platform for the conversation at least you get a chance to engage.

As an opening effort for the do-it-yourselfer’s out there, The Trinity of Social Media is complete with a blog, a micro-blog and a social network.  Pay attention to this, use at least this as a strategy and you’ll get a more positive result in social media than doing any single one of them without a strategy.

Is there a secret to it?  Only if you think there is a secret to strategy and a coordinated effort.  They need to be coordinated and developed to support one another in their operation and in the way they support one another.  Could one be implemented without the other?  Certainly – I present this strategy often enough to recognize that not everyone want to type / input their content. 

What else needs to be answered in this model? a lot.  If the blog was a video blog or a podcast would that work?  If the micro-blog was video or audio based would that count?  Which social network is the right one or should it be special constructed?  How do you get the answer?  subscribe here, join the community at TheSocialMediaBible.com or get a professional on your team and they can step your through the evaluation quickly.

Are there pitfalls to be avoided in the strategy?  Undoubtedly – but the overwhelming failure is to not engage in social media and believe you will somehow not be ignored or that your competition will also be complacent.  Actually, if you are a company and you are ignored, that is an important data point by itself – what might you be doing wrong?

[Update] I had someone suggest I create a Mind Map to help illustrate the Trinity of Social Media.  Neat idea! I used MindManager from Mindjet to create a Mind Map of the Trinity of Social Media.  Make sure you are current with Adobe Acrobat8 and Flash9 installed and this mind map & player should work (MindJet requirements)

If you’re on an Apple / Mac, you may only be able to open the .JPG of the map (click the image to the left).

Related posts:

• The Trinity of Social Media Explored Still Further – The Social Network
• The Trinity of Social Media explored – The Blog
• The Trinity of Social Media Explored Further – Microblogging