I’ve been referencing the below graphics at a few conferences I’ve spoken at, and realized that its worth a post.   Being involved in the space intimately, I obviously hear about the challenges related to ROI, the social web’s impact on direct business, actionable data, etc.  And  although I speak, teach, work with social campaigns, I realize that the social web is one of several digital elements that come into play.  Applying a holistic digital marketing campaign helps in addressing direct leads, branding, prospect follow up, etc.  The graphic, which I have already modified twice, is how I view search and social currently, but would imagine this can change in the near future.  Although I could include other media like display, ad networks, affiliate, for simplicity, Im sticking to the elements below.  And yes, the social elements on the left of the marketing funnel in the last 3 labeled graphics are worthy of being considered media or marketing.

In the graphic below (search impact), I would include all search engine optimization efforts, as well as PPC marketing in these engines.  When we research key words for our PPC campaigns and SEO efforts, we evaluate them by keyword intent.  The highly desirable terms are words that will most likely lead to a conversion.  Although key terms can impact any phase of the marketing funnel, I think they primarily impact “consideration” and “intent to purchase”.

Search Impact

Up until a few years ago, the social web has primarily impacted brand awareness.  Although I have worked on campaigns that actually impacted prospects deeper into the marketing funnel, on a whole, most of the social web is not addressing those with the intent to purchase, but rather are impacting conversations and creating brand awareness.

Social Web Impact

When I wrote my first post, and even second post on Groupon, I had no idea that Google would actually offer billions to acquire it earlier this year.   Of course, as we now know, they have gone with plan B, with Google Offers.

Deal sites (Deal Sites below) like Groupon, Tippr, Living social, etc.  have made their mark.  It may not be as impactful as search in the marketing funnel when it comes to a purchasing decision, but with smart email marketing and evaluation of past purchase history, it is obvious why Groupon is making money quicker than any social site in a such a short amount of time.

Just a note, facebook places, facebook’s version of deals is available in five cities and will play a bigger role when it rolls out nationwide.

Deal Sites

Last, but not least, location based services are becoming a formidable competitor to traditional search when it comes to its impact in the marketing funnel.  When you can potentially target someone by their checkin history, or provide a special to someone who has checked in near by, you have a potential to really drive purchases.  Its still early on, but its no surprise that facebook, google, yelp, etc. have all scrambled to provide some checkin feature to their overall offering.

Location Based Services

In conclusion, we are starting to see a shift in some elements of the social web and they are impacting all phases of the marketing funnel.  And although social media is a fraction of overall media spending, it deserves its own piece of the pie, and that slice looks to grow bigger over time.  Still waiting on the updated version on this spend chart that Forrester put out in 2009, it shows the increase up until 2015.

Word-of-mouth was never expected to occupy so much of your time spent on the Internet. For humans, communication has always been a necessity. Sharing information has been evident since ages. All the shared information so far has helped forge evolutionary development and we all know that.

However, the entire buzz about social media being new isn’t really accurate. The Internet –as a medium – is new but the underlying element of sharing information isn’t. It first occurred in physical person and then the telephone systems, leading up to the very first Bulletin Board Systems (1979-1955). It was after the World Wide Web broke off into a seamless array of computers connected to each other during the year 1991 that the “tipping point’ surfaced.

In August 1988, IRC (Internet Relay Chat) was founded by Jarkko OiKarinen and even that the first time people stayed logged-in for long periods of time sharing information, communicating, files and links – a seemingly unstoppable flow of communication by passing information to networks throughout the globe.

As IRC turned out to be a ‘hot’ hang-out place for all, the Instant messengers promptly came up to replace IRC as the de-facto medium for communicating with others on the Internet. Meanwhile, there was a need to share large amount of files from one system to the other which led to the first of the Peer-to-peer file sharing programs. Napster, launched in June 1999, made this file sharing extremely popular by allowing free music files to be downloaded for free.

All of this was social indeed, but we still aren’t there yet. Sizdegrees.com was the first social networking site (SNS) launched in 1997 which allowed people to create profiles, connect with friends and share information. There was no looking back since then with the launch of Myspace, facebook and then Twitter.

In a nearby town called as ‘Blogosphere’, countless blogs emerged – each with a voice and an opinion – and this town was forever jiving with excitement and buzzing with activity with its members actively engaging themselves in verbal duels, more information sharing through blogger networks that sprouted up just as easily and quickly. Technorati was then launched as a blog directory and a blog specific search engine both rolled into one to enable blog readers and everyone else to keep a tab on their favorite bloggers.

Socialmediarockstar featured a nice write-up on a “Brief History of Social Media”  and you may want to read it.

Just information sharing, making friends and connecting with them wasn’t important; knowing what others knew and liking what others like along with buying what most people buy has become the unseen thread linking the birth of innumerable sites of powerful repute. The year 2006 saw the emergence of ‘social bookmarking’ where I read something and I like it so I ‘book mark it on the web’ so that my network can see what I liked and they might bookmark it too if they like it. This led to sites like Digg, Reddit, Deli.ci.ous and stumble-upon in the same year.

Nothing seems to stop this phenomenon. What was once curious neighborhood banter now became a rage in the digital word. This very social web rides on the fate of multi-billion dollar corporations and is responsible for billion dollar assets for companies like trust, goodwill and popularity of products and services.

Our consumerism has been growing relentlessly along with the sophistication in consumer behavior. This had a direct bearing on the direct marketing and advertising companies calling for an apt response to the rapidly changing scenario.

One of the most common characteristics of all these early social media sites was that there was an increasing need to share and exchange information across the board. While CompuServe focused largely on technical information exchange, AOL had a lot of personal interest being discussed. Corporations, the companies and everyone else In the field now realized that the tables have turned around.

The roots of this dynamic change can be largely attributed to the very pioneers of the social networking phenomenon namely: CompuServe, America Online, Tripod and Geocities. Now, the new social media sites like Twitter, rateit.com, digg, various forums online, etc control the buttons.

Primarily, any kind of advertising – or someone making a point on why I need to buy that product – has a conflict of interest built in. I know that there would be at least one reason the sales person will be pushing me on which has no direct bearing on my best interest. So when I do buy something and it doesn’t turn out to be as good as I was expecting it to be, I would then click, write and click for the whole world to see.

Consider Amazon: Their early advertising expenses weren’t justified so they took to creating buzz. They announced their famous “Shipping free above for orders above $25” and then the retail giant’s ascent to the top began. Many more brands like – and literally almost everyone on the e-commerce scene—has a “no questions asked, money-back guarantee”.

Social media, since the days of AOL all the way until way up to Twitter, has literally proved itself to be word-of-mouth on steroids. Now, it isn’t even stopping. You now have Google at the very forefront trying to dominate the social media scene. It first launched Google Wave and before we could figure out what to do with it, Google Buzz was launched very recently.

There will be a point at which there would be no sense in launching any of these sites anymore with every Internet user having at least 3-4 or perhaps even more profiles across various social media platforms. Although development and launch of new sites will stop, the relentless talk, buzz, sharing of information will never stop.

The business houses already have their tails in their legs and consumers now rule the web. What do you think? Where did you find yourself nostalgic? If you are a business, have you made necessary changes to your marketing strategy to account for social media?

With a check in each second and counting, check-ins at various locations, and most interesting a sense of virtual achievement by winning badges for everything you do. I am talking about foursquare Now, talking about foursquare is really incomplete if we don’t discuss the different kinds of badges that are awarded to users based on their activity levels, achievements, etc. Most of the badges are obviously offered by foursquare, but rumor has it that very soon users will be able to create their own badges (this can only lead to chaos – 52 badges and counting?). Here’s a short take on different badges and what they mean to you:

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Pajama Cast #6

I haven’t answered questions on Linkedin in a while, so I thought it would be cool to incorporate my answer into a video, so my very first one comes from Jennifer Nguyen.  Her question is ..

“Is it professional or politically correct to mix Facebook, Linkedin contacts and other social media connection accounts or keep them separate from each other?”

Watch my response in this video.

Linkedin Answer for Jennifer Nguyen from ruben quinones on Vimeo.

Also, check out Jennifer’s profile, here.   http://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifernguyen

I wanted to quickly write this post and thank Tamar Weinberg for dropping by to guest lecture for my NYU students. Tamar, if you don’t know already, is author of “The New Community Rules: Marketing On The Social Web”.  She is also creator of Techipedia.com, marketing manager at Mashable, and an internet marketing .

Being that this a social media course, her knowledge went beyond just the guest lecture, as her book was recommended reading for assignments. Her book by the way is a great read if you are trying to grasp this new world of communities online . It covers the basics of blogging, top social sites to be aware of, and some great case studies of brands that are currently using social media.  Tamar, thanks for enlightening us with your book and appearance in our last class, it was very much appreciated!