"There Is Really Nothing New About Social Media..."

My good friend Todd Feldman just wrote a great blog post that I wanted to share. It's called Getting Real About Integrating Your Brand with Social Media.

First, a little about Todd. He and I worked together on the Emerging Channels team at circuitcity.com. More than just about anyone I know, Todd gets social media and how it can be used for e-commerce and marketing. He likes to say "Social Media should be viewed as a powerful ingredient that enables the connection of every department within your company with each other and then directly to your customer."

That would look a little like this:


...or perhaps we can think about it like this:

Social Media is a lot like Manhattan. It's an island. Not the lonely, inaccessible island the 48 survivors of Lost call home. On the contrary, Manhattan is booming with traffic and connected to land on all sides by a complex system of bridges. The folks in your company who are struggling to accept Social Media because they see it as an island...show 'em this map.

In his blog post, Todd wrote "Word-of Mouth Marketing is the oldest form of marketing, right?" He then came to a very insightful conclusion..."There really is nothing new about Social Media, except that now we have technology on our side." I couldn't agree more. The "new" part, I would argue, is the new importance in excepting the need for transparency.

Let's face it, big-business is borrowing social technologies from the general population. If we are going to have any real success in this field, we're going to have to spend some effort discovering what makes Social Networking work in the real world. Consider this, the most influential bloggers, tweeters, facebook friends, ect...they are the ones that allow themselves to be exposed online. They share with us their real experiences...and they are rewarded with our loyalty and trust.

How can you be more transparent in your viral branding? What can you share about your business that will create a bond of trust between you and your online followers? Discuss those questions in the comment section below. Maybe your answers will help us all.