Over the course of the last couple of years, many firms have been focused on the question of whether or not to utilize social networking as part of their marketing efforts.   Consumer utilization of social networking sites and technology advances has quickly shifted marketer perspectives from “Do we” to “How do we” incorporate social media into our marketing and communications program.

Participation on social networking sites means that there is an enormous amount of information on people, their interests, connections and behaviors.  According to Ethan Beard, Facebook’s Director of Platform Partnerships this means that people are not surfing the web anonymously… “more than 250 million Facebook users log on each day and each of their pages look differently.”   As the web evolves its ability to synthesize this information and integrate social layers, it will be able to deliver relevant information and custom experiences to each user based upon their identities, preferences and patterns, filtering out non-applicable information.  Basic search patterns will leverage contextual information to serve up results based upon “who” is asking the question and the types of people they interact with on-line.  So the socialization of the web has already begun and it will impact your organization, regardless of its utilization of social media marketing.  If firms have not yet formalized their social media strategy, the best approach would be to begin monitoring social interactions concerning their brands and companies to assess how they’re thought of and the tenor of the dialogue that is taking place… with or without them.  With this understanding as a backdrop, firms can determine the best course to chart to begin shaping those interactions by joining the conversation and sharing relevant information to positively impact perceptions.  Interested in learning more?  Check out this article from http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2808.