Navigating the Social Media Landscape

"Social Media" is a squishy topic to a lot of people, and particularly to decision makers within many organizations.  The gurus seem to know what they are talking about -- mostly -- but even the concept of "social media expert" is riddled with fallacy.  The problem, as I see it, is that social media has risen so far, so fast, to become a marketing, communications, and organizational priority, and there have been a great number of moderately savvy folks that have benefited from passing themselves off as "experts" along the way.  It's not necessarily these peoples' fault: while most of us can Facebook with the best of 'em, a great number of organizations simply lack the in-house expertise to make sense of social media from a mission perspective, also know as, "how do we derive real business or organizational value from these services?"  It's a tough challenge to find true experts in a field that is only a few years old.

I was therefore quite pleased yesterday when my friend, Erin Zagursky, sent me a link to "A CMO's Guide To The Social Media Landscape", a great article from CMO.com (Erin works in communications, University Relations at The College of William and Mary to be specific, so she should know a good article when she sees one - thanks, Erin).  I really wish that I had a copy of this article and the really nice chart that accompanies it when I discussed social media with a group over lunch a few weeks ago; the chart is really great.  CMO writes:

Social media marketing is expected to dominate this year -- so much so that 81% of CMOs plan to link their annual revenues to their social media investment, according to a recent survey by The CMO Club and Bazaarvoice. But the growing list of online social media sites makes choosing the right route complicated. From Facebook to YouTube to Digg and beyond, which media outlets will net the most bang for the buck in terms of customer communication, brand exposure, traffic, and SEO?

"The Social Landscape" chart, as published by the apparently quite insightful folks at 97th Floor, accompanied the article.




That graphic is a bit tough to read, so I recommend downloading the PDF either from my files or straight away from CMO.com.  Forward this thing, print it out, share it with your friends and co-workers, get it in front of people who need to make decisions about where to allocate time and effort in social media.

I have personally opted to use a few of these.  Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube make the cut.  I would also add a blogging (either through Blogger or WordPress, as each have their pros and cons) to the list.  Twitter is a tool to reach and interact with "connectors," the tech-savvy people in society that influence others and care about being plugged in.  Facebook is the means to richly communicate with the masses, and more particularly with your most loyal fans.  LinkedIn connects to and exposes professional networks.  YouTube is, of course, the leading video platform, providing a number of ways to package, mix, and share your (and others') videos.

All that said, the needs (and time to devote) of every person and organization differ.  The trick here is finding the right social media cocktail that balances your goals, your audience, and your available resources.