I’m as excited as anyone about the social marketing potential of the ‘real-time’ web, particularly as it applies to the mobile/location-based space. As more and more people flock to apps such as Foursquare, Gowalla, and BriteKite to document their every movement, everyone from local businesses to global brands are taking notice and trying to put together strategies to engage and reward consumers with “badges” (virtual “social currency”) and discounts/offers (tangible incentives) through these platforms (for the sake of my post, we’ll assume these are mostly actual consumers and not just all of us industry folks).

But the question remains – are you engaging/rewarding the right people? Let me use an analogy to illustrate…

Growing up, I spent a good deal of time working/hanging out at my family’s pizza business. Like a typical small-town local business, there were always a few interesting characters/regulars who would make it their home away from home, hanging out in the store day after day. They’d interact with other customers, tell jokes, and drink soda. Lots and lots of free soda. But they would never buy more than a slice of pizza during the course of a day.

In their minds, they were the “mayors” of the restaurant, where “everyone knew their names” and in a way they felt like they “owned” the place. But to us, they were “mascots” – nice folks, fun to have around, but of no real value to the business (and in some ways, potentially distracting to both customers and staff). They often came alone (didn’t have many friends), nor did they go out of their way to promote the business. My point is, don’t equate activity with influence.

So, when executing your location-based (or any consumer engagement) strategy, ask yourself – are you actually targeting “Mayors” or “Mascots”?

(Note: Even one of my company’s clients, Sports Authority, recently dove head-first into the location-based marketing space by offering $10 in-store cash cards via Foursquare to the “Mayors” of each of their stores nationwide. While it has made for a great PR/industry piece, the overall impact is just a blip on the radar compared to what they have seen by providing Facebook and Twitter-exclusive offers to their hundreds of thousands of fans and followers (or millions of others through weekend circulars), and won’t have solid loyalty metrics for some time. And like any other business, unless these location-based social tactics are integrated into a larger CRM/loyalty initiative, you will never know if you are in fact targeting “Mayors” or “Mascots”)

(click the image for an easier-to-read version. Note that this a ‘living’ chart that I have been soliciting feedback/input on – if you have any suggestions/additions/changes, just post a comment below or at the SlideShare page!)

I’ve already noted how social media is not the same as Word of Mouth. And as the social landscape broadens, it’s simply causing more confusion as the term “social” gets slapped on just about anything to make it sound cool and relevant.

Above is a chart I’ve been working on that tries to illustrate the “social” landscape in terms of tactics and goals. You should be able to take any social touchpoint/tactic/business model (brand community, Twitter profile, blogger outreach, CGM sweepstakes) and plot them on this chart.

Essentially, this chart segments the social landscape into four quadrants… as a function of:

• CRM (social CRM or sCRM)
• Marketing (social MARKETING)
• PR (social PR)
• Media (social MEDIA)

The horizontal axis represents “owned” social channels (that you own/control) versus “leased” ones (i.e., paying a company for access to their network of consumers willing to try and/or talk about your product). The “partially owned” area represents social platforms such as Twitter and Facebook where yes, you can establish a brand presence but you don’t own any underlying data and are at the whim of the service provider in terms of metrics or even having your account suspended. The vertical axis represents the depth of engagement from very 1-to-1/personal to impersonal/3rd-person – i.e., “engagement” vs. “reach”:

In conclusion, there is nothing wrong with leveraging the social web to facilitate high-impact, quick hit consumer promotions, but at the end of the day was your goal to “reach” 1,000,000 consumers with a message about your product, or simply “acquire” a 10,000 email addresses into your company’s email database? As the social landscape broadens, marketers need to ensure that their success metrics are in line with the tactics they are leveraging. And that unfortunately can’t happen until you have properly educated the folks holding the pursestrings.

Tapping into blogger “influencers” is a very sensitive initiative. They can’t be treated as paid employees sitting behind desks receiving mass amounts of PR blasts nor do they want to be treated this way. Because they have the liberty to write at their own free will, there is no hindrance to what they can and will write. Typos included. It is this raw thinking process in which marketers crave and should be paying attention to.

Cision Media Research recently conducted research on the mention of blogs in 20 major print media publications clearly indicating the growing influence of bloggers. Cision discovered that the top 20 national magazines and newspapers mentioned blogs and bloggers 13,066 times in the one-year period ending June 30, 2008. That compares to only 795 times in 2004 and 2,179 times in 2005.

“This stunning growth in blogger influence magnifies the importance of employing common sense when contacting bloggers,” said Peter Granat, Cision Executive Vice President. “Knowing the blogger and his/her focus is the critical element in a successful blog relations campaign. While many blogs are highly visible in their own right, the growing influence with the mainstream media elevates their importance.”

How can we as marketers connect with bloggers? You may not have the status of P&G to offer all-expense-paid trips but the simple gesture of being sincere and getting to know the blogger whom you are trying to form a relation with is just as good. Notice I said blogger and not bloggers because generic PR blasts to a list without any customization will not do. It takes time to get to know someone so make the effort to do so and your initiatives will more likely yield positive results.

Marketers are tripping over each other in the race to reach “influentials” who, according to a recent EMarketer story, make up 18% of all online communities.

The numbers are impressive. It is reported that the population of American Internet users considered word of mouth “influencers” will be 28 million strong next year, but advertisers who are hoping for a cost-effective and measurable way to grab hold of the online social media phenomenon and get the loudest “influencers” to scream their message are missing a valuable piece of the equation.

According to Debra Aho Williamson, author of the eMarketer WOM Marketing report (via MediaPost), “While there’s a small segment of people who are very vocal, posting reviews and blogs, there is this vast middle ground of people who are moderately influential, the ones who pass a video on to their friends, or find a cool site and tell their husband. Marketers can’t forget consumers who are influential in their smaller circle, both on- and offline.”

For example, 64% of “influencers” do online research after seeing or hearing an ad on TV, radio, or in a magazine — but only 30% notice a Web ad and later visit the Web site or check out the product in a store.

Some additional stats on “influencers”:
Influencers over-index in consumption of news vs. the general population such as reading the local paper in a given month (84% vs. 68%) and visiting a broadcast news site monthly (48% vs. 38%).

Related Links:

Word-of-Mouth Marketing: Winning Friends and Influencing Customers (eMarketer)
EMarketer: Brands Shouldn’t Ignore Offline WOM Activity (MediaPost)