Cymfony's chief strategy and marketing officer makes the case for incorporating social media into the marketing plan.

Examples of the power of social media -- from the Kryptonite lock crisis to the Converse Gallery success -- have convinced many marketers to incorporate social marketing into their plans. But marketers often must convince their senior managers, who don't understand the influence the social aspects of the web experience is exerting on their brands.

Here's the elevator pitch to give a busy executive: The influence traditional media and marketing have over consumer perception is waning as technology allows consumers to get more opinions and advice from each other. But companies like Intuit, Initiative Media and iRobot are successfully using social marketing strategies to gain business advantage.

Here's the detail to support this pitch.

Consumers are embracing the social web
While content is part of the web experience, communication is what really pulls consumers online. Email communication was the "killer app" that made the web a must-have. Communication has taken more of consumers' online time than content in 12 of the last 13 months, according to the Online Publishers Association's Internet Activity Index.

As consumer experience and comfort with the technology have increased, these social activities extend to people they don't know. According to the Pew Internet and American Life project, 44 percent  of American internet users read and post on blogs, discussion boards and other "consumer-generated media" outlets. Blogs have become a habit for almost one-third of internet users. As blogs evolve into more comprehensive social network sites like MySpace and Gather.com, consumers expand their circle of friends and develop close relationships with scores of people, even though they may never meet them.

Marketing practices developed for the content-driven offline world won't be enough in this social environment. Just as search required new strategies and tactics, marketers must learn new techniques to use the social web effectively.

Consumers find the last bastion of trust: each other
The rise of consumers connecting with each other has coincided with the decline in traditional ways to influence consumers' perceptions and preferences. Numerous studies, including the 2005 Yankelovich Marketing Resistance Survey, document consumer ad avoidance trends, and misdeeds by Jayson Blair and Dan Rather have undermined journalism's credibility.

So where do consumers turn? Word of mouth continues to be the most powerful form of marketing, but it is no longer limited to a small circle of friends and work colleagues. Forrester Research's 2004 study showed that over 60 percent of consumers trust product recommendations found in online sources like discussion boards while ads in the most trusted traditional medium -- newspapers -- earned the trust of just over 50 percent of respondents.

Social marketing strategies drive business results
But consumers' behavior and media consumption changes alone are not enough to convince senior executives to adopt this new strategy. They need to see how it is going to drive revenue, reduce costs or otherwise help the company achieve its business goals.

Amazon's customer reviews allow it to defend against the offline power of Barnes & Noble. Wal-Mart may be an invincible juggernaut in offline retail but eBay's buyer ratings and other community features draw twice the number of unique visitors as walmart.com according to comScore. Social marketing strategies can even give individuals the clout of major brands: greeting card site jacquielawson.com got as many visitors as hallmark.com in December 2005, according to Alexa.

But social marketing strategies are no longer limited to these born-and-bred online companies.

• Intuit has extensive blogs for each of its products, enabling product managers to tap users to solicit new ideas, prioritize features in development, and even test new advertising messages. In the company's 2005 annual report, CEO Steve Bennett's letter to shareholders states "…positive word of mouth creates a durable advantage for Intuit that translates into sustained revenue and profit growth."
  
  
• In 2004, Initiative Media, the media planning and buying unit of ad agency holding company Interpublic Group, tapped online discussions to correctly predict the success of "Lost," a show many industry veterans and even traditional market research predicted would fail. Interpublic just announced the creation of a Customer Experience Practice which will formalize this offering to clients.
  
  
• iRobot has enabled users of its Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner to "hack" the programming, posted specifications on a wiki on their site and linked to "Roomba hacking" sites. According to the Boston Globe: "The idea is to encourage a new wave of robotic innovation by users that won't cost iRobot a lot of money. Investors have rebelled against the company's recently announced plans to increase spending on research and development."

Jim Nail is chief strategy and marketing officer for Cymfony and a member of the Board of Directors for the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. Cymfony sifts and interprets the millions of voices at the intersection of traditional and consumer-generated media to identify the people, issues and trends impacting a brand or company. Prior to joining Cymfony, Nail spent eight years as principal analyst at Forrester Research leading coverage of how technology is changing traditional marketing strategies and tactics.