It is understood that social media is changing the way that people communicate, both personally and professionally. From a business standpoint, it can be very difficult to determine the appropriate way to engage in social media for marketing purposes. I am always looking for research that goes beyond the raw data of users and reach to provide real insight. Studies like Prompt Communication’s survey of 300 Boston consumers on their uses of social media fits this bill.

Among the surveyed group, 96% said that they use Facebook regularly to keep in touch with friends. This trailed the telephone (99%) and beat out both texting (93%) and email (91%). Think about it. A social network has become a preferred form of communication between friends.

This certainly supports the trend of widespread social media adoption. But more importantly, it brings into focus the role social media is playing in consumer’s lives. Social networks are being used for very personal reasons.

As organization’s look to leverage social media as a marketing channel, it is important to keep in mind the very personal nature of sites like Facebook. People, by and large, are not there to be sold to or marketed to. They are there to connect with people.

Does that mean that Facebook is a bad place for brands? Not necessarily. Products, services and brands can be the shared interests that we as people connect through. People are connecting and organizing around shared interests in brands like Harley Davidson, TOMs Shoes and the television show Lost everyday.

The key to appropriately placing your marketing messages in this personal space is to be very relevant to the consumer. Vitaminwater used a Facebook fan page to give their customers a voice in product development. Their flavorcreator app enabled fans to help create a new flavor of the beverage, engaging their brand ambassadors in a fun way. Their wall area is not just a listing of posts about how great the drink is, but rather updates on events the brand is involved with—events that their target audience enjoys—like concerts and the ESPN X Games. It is less a forum of promotional broadcasts from the company, and more a shared space for their customers.

When you think about starting your organization’s Facebook fan page, make sure you consider your audience and think through how you can play a role in their online social lives, not just inundate them with sales messages. Be a facilitator of connections, not a barrier to connections.

All of the major social media players have seen strong to explosive growth over the last 12 months. Mainstays of the social media world, MySpace and Flickr have produced modest to flat growth. Latecomers Facebook and Linkedin posted strong triple digit growth over the last 12 months, with Facebook overtaking MySpace, in terms of unique visits, in December 2008. Currently, Facebook leads all social media sites with over 90 million unique visits in the month of March 2009. However, the story of the last 12 months is Twitter, whose explosive growth of over 1,000%, bringing their May 2009 unique visitor count to just under 20 million.

A brief snapshot of visitor trends in the major social media players.

What does this all mean?
While advertisers and marketing brand managers scratch their heads trying to figure out how to integrate social media into their campaigns, some standards of traditional marketing still stand strong. Media is judged on demographics, geographic proximity, and overall audience size. We should always strive to deliver the right message to the right audience at the right time.

Not all social media sites are the same. While there are many multi-site social media consumers, it is becoming clear that the loyal MySpace user is different from the loyal Facebook user. Twitter seems to be more commonly used with the Facebook crowd. However, with no clear plan in place to monetize and buy out bids from Google and Facebook in the news every other week, Twitter’s future business model is still unclear. Linkedin, though currently trailing the aforementioned in terms of monthly visitors, appeals to the niche of business, sort of a 21st century Rotary Club.

Business objectives should be considered and benefits weighed against the resources needed to establish and maintain a proper presence on any of these channels.

What to do?
Each social media site has its own strengths and weaknesses. For instance Facebook has the largest overall audience. Brands that have done the best have built a grass roots following within that network. Friends see other friends become “fans” of the brand and join in. Another powerful feature of this property is the ability to reach this audience with timely, relevant invitations to promotional events, such as a person’s favorite local music group playing at a coffee shop that they frequent. In short, Facebook is not the largest because they appeal to everyone with one thing. They appeal to lots of small groups with many things. Brands wanting to leverage this property should be patient and let the grass roots nature of this site run its course.

With just under 60 million visitors in May 2009, MySpace is still a force to be reckoned with. Though their traffic has flattened out, they have a core audience that you will not find on Facebook. Their ability to target specific demographics makes MySpace a superior site for banner ad campaigns. This ability to target demographics, combined with their, still, massive audience should be appealing to most B2C brands.

As for Twitter, this is the first social media platform that has built itself upon the least common denominator of electronic communication, the short text message. The brilliance in the design of this site is the simplicity of participation, a la Google search. Brands that particiate in this channel need to be prepared for a much more interactive relationship with their audience, taking the good with the bad.

Linkedin seems to have the market in online business networking. Their resume-like profiles are an excellent way to filter and recruit new tallent into your organization. Additionally, Linkedin can be an excellent resource for figuring out if you have a person “on the inside” when interviewing for a job, or making a sales presentation.