A bit of background It is early days in the social media space but it is changing the world we live in. The market has experienced a rapid ascendancy, claiming large audiences and frequent attention at the cost of traditional media companies whilst redrawing the landscape in the view of those who pay for media - the advertisers. 

• Web users like socializing online where they have a common connection to a theme or other people
• Most large traditional media companies have failed to utilise the potential of the web in their content and are now threatened by their own high cost financial model
• Online communities or tribes can have a dramatic effect in the real world
• The web user no longer gets their news from just 1 provider
• Advertisers are more focused on conversion to sale then where they place their media
• Monetization models have stabilised around display and performance but are supplemental to content.
• In social media the content is free to distribute and can be cheaper to produce.
• The depth of measurement available in online advertising has facilitated a better price discovery process relative to traditional media
• All social networks that have achieved scale have been funded it on a freemium model, the pursuit for profits and VC payback has begun
• There are lots of social media consultants and it considered and art not a science
• The market is moving at a very fast pace
• This real time chatter covers all subjects and languages
• Governments are not exempt - national security, elections and the freedom of information are all effected

These are plenty of success stories to inspire and entice new entrants. But these successes have one thing in common - they were successes by early adopters of technology. What about everyone else - the other 97% of web users who are happy with e-mail and still use mobile phone to makes just make calls and send invoices on fax machines. How should they get involved in this new frontier of marketing? I'm not sure there is an answer to that yet but there is a nascent but rapidly growing group of companies that are rapidly bringing to market  a new breed of online discovery and productivity tools to address this problem. Their target markets are the media agencies, companies (of all sizes) and every niche or cluster of users that wishes to use social media and the data it yields in a more productive, structured and measurable fashion. These SAAS (software as a service) technology companies build, develop and sell social media monitoring systems. If you are an early adopter then finding the information is not the problem - its the time it take to do. There are plenty of free tools on the web if you know where to look. The problem is assembling it in a format so it can be sent to others to be analyzed and then making it easy to undersand so that something can be done about it.

The Process

I think that a successful social media monitoring and engagement program needs to follow some basic steps to get a ROI.

• Set objectives and value metrics
• Define scope of activity
• Set budgets, allocate tasks and define success to those involved
• Select your tools
• Listen
• Filter
• Triage
• Engage
• Measure
• Don't stop

Another view on this process is described by the diagram below. I think we have all been thinking along the same lines but as ever with an emerging market the language is still a little fuzzy.

http://www.kenburbary.com/2009/10/introducing-the-social-analytics-lifecycle/trackback/

The Problems

"Information is a source of learning. But unless it is organized, processed, and available to the right people in a format for decision making, it is a burden, not a benefit." - William Pollard

I think this quote pretty much covers the situation we are faced with. There are lots of social networks that have search features built in to their sites. Some have opened their search engines to other search engine so that we can see the results all in one place. But how do we get all the data in one place so we can analyse it? How do we define what we are counting and make it easy to understand? The average CEO doesn't relate to the new language of retweets, mentions or followers. I believe there is a genuine demand for  a simple tool that is waited equally across the process so that is doesn't generate too much information so it can't be processed quickly. Similarly it must be an end to end product. By that I mean that I must be able to listen, sort, act and measure the effect of my engagement. My view is that most of the products spend to much time on the listen and machine based sorting tools and not enough on the act and measure part. In short I see the problems in the social media space as:

• Making meaning from social content or data and deducing actionable data
• Tagging or grouping content and profiles so that they can be analysed in depth or acted upon separately
• Visualizing what is happening and presenting it to clients and management
• Creating automated responses to basic questions
• Creating action, objective or campaign based templates that can be measure and compared
• Share responsibilities and manage accounts as a team
• Measuring ROI over time

The right tool is.......

There are lots of tools out there. There is a great list hosted by @kenbarbury at wiki.kenburbary.com/home. As you can see, there are many companies that have spotted the opportunity and are trying to solve the problem. In my view, the tools are still finding their way. They have different language, coverage and approaches. All have strengths and weaknesses. I'm going save how to choose a social media monitoring tool for another blog post as this is already a bit of a rant.

Why is it such a big opportunity?

"Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family."  Kofi Annan

Imagine being able to look at a crowd and know what they want. That is the implication of a good social media monitoring process. You can learn how they feel about you, your product, your brand, your competitors or discover what they want, need or are willing to share. The potential spans commerce (products and services), politics, research, medicine and almost everything western civilization holds dear. In my mind, it is the biggest opportunity for the next decade.

During this decade the race is on to find the tools, methods and means to unlock all that potential. 

If you know and have used twitter extensively then this post may be a bit of a bore, but recently I have been asked by a number of friends:

• "what the hell is twitter about?"
• "why do I care what you had for breakfast?"
• "why would I want to know your GPS coordinates?"
• "are there any hot chicks on there?"

So I decided not to repeat myself constantly and thought it might be of use to explain it in depth for those who are interested. There is tons of information on the web already (which I'll use to avoid repeating the good points others have made) but I wanted to add my 2 cents on what I thought was most important as an individual (not a corporate brand) and also point out the most important opportunities to get something out of it - which is the whole point of using it. Before I get started - if you don't get it, don't worry - you aren't alone. There is a commonly understood process to accepting and using twitter. People often go through the "5 stages of twitter acceptance".  Have a read of this article. I found it to be remarkably accurate. Most people are at stage 1 or 2. So, here goes: 1. What is Twitter? Twitter is a simple, free and open messaging system. I like to think of it as an open instant messenger with the world. Anyone can view messages and members can join in (more like a forum then traditional IM like MSN/Yahoo/ICQ). You can access it from your computer or mobile phone. For me, twitter is a way of saying anything to anyone who is listening via any web capable device. I can search all the messages people have sent (or tweets) in the past and find other people who are focused on the same subjects or thoughts as I am. I can then engage with them in further conversations around those subjects or anything else I choose. I use twitter differently to other social networks. I like to say that Facebook is for the people I already know and have met. Twitter is a tool i use to find the people I should meet in the future as they have similar interests and I can judge whether they have anything interesting to say by seeing their tweets. Twitter likes to say "what are you doing" but I find that I use it to say:

• What I'm reading
• What I'm thinking
• What I want to find out
• What I like or don't like
• Where I am
• Where I'm going
• What I want to other specific people

One of the big differences between twitter and other services is that you can fully access twitter's features from other websites. This is due to twitters approach to programming and a thing called an API. For example - I can go to another site like www.twitterfall.com,  login (using your twitter username and password) and then use all the twitter features from that site. The same cannot be said for other sites like facebook or myspace. They only allow partial information to be added from other sites - if at all. You can watch this video for another (and probably better) way of looking at it. The video implies that you should use twitter for people known to you -  friends and family. I use it for a much wider social group - everyone I should have met but haven't yet. I use facebook for people I have a closer connection with as I can share much more detailed/rich information. 2. How do I get involved? Go to www.twitter.com and register. Choose a name that you want to be found as on the web. Personally I think its best to be yourself on twitter, but there some instances where you might want to take on another persona. Once you have registered, fill in your details such as your bio (profile description), location (city) and upload picture of yourself. Other people will view your profile and will make a judgment - do I want to follow this person? I make this judgment based on:

• similar interests
• usefulness of your tweets
• similar location
• similar sector of employment
• your number of followers and friends

Here's a great article on why people will not follow you. 3. How do I get set up? Twitters website is very basic and to be honest it doesn't help you understand the service. My advice is:

1. Go to www.tweetdeck.com and download/install the program.
2. Start the program and login.
3. Play with the features and say Hi to the world.
4. Search for a subject you are interested in by clicking the magnifying glass icon in the top left corner.
5. View some tweets and see if you find anyone of interest.
6. If so follow them and say why you followed them. Its about reaching out.

You can also search your gmail/yahoo/hotmail address book on twitter.com to see if anyone else you know is on twitter. If there are follow, if there aren't go and find people to follow. You can also use a service called www.twollo.com to find interesting people (there are others as well). You login and search for keywords that people have in their bio's or tweets. The system will automatically follow them. Don't worry  you can unfollow them later if you wish. This will allow you to tap into a stream of tweets around a subject or theme. There are many different approaches to following other twitter users. Some people keep private, others follow a few people who are know to them. I found the best way to meet other interesting people was to follow lots of people who have similar interests and then filter them down depending on if they engage with me or if they tweet interesting things or not. This is a personal thing and is part of the discovery process of twitter. Ask for help, you'll be surprised how many people will reach out to answer questions. Don't take it personally when people unfollow you. It's different for everyone. This is where you need to invest some time. This stage will take time but you'll go from 3-5 on the twitter acceptance scale and find you have unlocked a powerful tool that can enhance your online experience. It may also help your business. Small, medium and large businesses can reach out to their consumer base, suppliers and competitors and talk about anything they want. Opportunties will follow quickly. 4 . What is the opportunity? This is the thing. Twitter is so flexible and simple it can be used for many different reasons and in many different contexts. I am using it to widen my professional network and meet new people who I can share useful information with. I hope to find people I can work with and learn from. You may want to keep your circle tight and private - such as just for your family. The opportunity for instant communication can be with whoever you wish. Its up to you - that's the point. The benefits I have experienced are:

• Great connections with interesting people
• Interesting content from lots of sources
• Breaking news updates
• Real time chat with knowledgeable thought leaders
• Hours of entertainment
• A wider range of reading from links people post

The bigger your network the more likely you are to find value in the information you  get from twitter. Listen to what the web has to say. There will be a lot of noise but within that noise will be some really useful stuff. You just need to learn how to tap into it and filter out the crap. Some people only choose to follow the people they perceive as thought leaders but I think that having you ear to the ground will allow you to get chance across more interesting people and opportunities. 5. How do I manage/track my account? You can manage your account on twitter.com and use lots of tools that can help you refine and track your accounts performance. Have a look at my blogroll (on the right side of this page) for useful twitter tools. Twitter tools generally follow themes such as:

• Statistics about your account and usage of twitter
• Suggestions about who to follow
• Directories of users
• Applications you can download to access twitter on your computer or mobile phone

6. Who should I follow and who else uses it? That is up to you. You are in control. Lots of different types of people use twitter for lots of different reasons. Some examples include:

• Celebrities to reach out to fans
• Entrepreneurs or CEO's to communicate a vision
• News outlets or Bloggers to spread the word about their publications
• Journalists to allow stories to come to them
• Moms to share useful info
• Companies to collect feedback and communicate with their customers
• Politicians who want to talk to voters
• Real estate companies who want to attract business

The list could be endless and is constantly shifting. The simplicity of the tool allows it to be applied to any type of communication. Check out this article to see a list of directories. 7. What a pile - this is another fad for geeks..... Well maybe. Plenty of people think like that. Time will tell. But remember people said the same about the web, blogging and online shopping. Microblogging is here to stay in my opinion and it will take a few more years to become a mass market product. I am often accused of being a geek for using twitter - this doesn't bother me but it frustrates me that people are slow to try new things using the web. This is an amazing communication tool and yet we are not amazed. I plan to take advantage of it whilst everyone else catches up. It may give me an edge. I would encourage you to invest some time in twitter and find out for yourself. My prediction is that twitter will become like an interactive phone book. You will be able to look people up and the communicate with them in a safe controllable way. There are issues with twitter but the community is great and cares too much to see it fail because of a few bozos. 8. @AJAG's top tips: Basically - imagine your boss or grandmother is watching. This will keep you to constructive meaningful engagements. Everything else is a waste of your time. If you wish to be a persona then the opposite of the advice above applies.

• http://shegeeks.net/twitter-101-clarifying-the-rules-for-newbies/
• http://www.lastpodcast.net/2008/01/27/how-i-use-twitter/
• http://www.doshdosh.com/ways-you-can-use-twitter/

10. Advanced stuff When are familiar with the basics check out:

1. Events
2. Hastags
3. Groups

If  you are feeling really adventurous you can go to a tweet up and meet other tweeps. But remember the basic safety advice when meeting anyone you have met online. There are some nutters out there. I'll update this article over time to share more info as I find it or learn more. So there you have it - enjoy. I hope that helps get you started. Tweet me if you like this article - I'd love to hear if it helped. I'm @AJAG. Check out my bookmarks for more info I have collected over the last 6 months on twitter.