The blogosphere is buzzing about the new social media measurement platform SAS Institute Inc. announced yesterday.   Is there a place for yet ANOTHER social web monitoring tool in a crowded market? And what is so special about this announcement?

The answer is yes, there is a place for this new entry, and here are four reasons why I think SAS will be successful in this competitive space.

Text-sensitive analysis — I had the opportunity to review several social media measurement platforms over the past few months including market leader Radian6.  Everyone is struggling with accurate textual analysis for “sentiment” reports and are loading up on costly human resources to examine tweets for tone and emotion.  Most don’t think computers can do it.  If SAS has started to crack this code — and some say they have done this by leveraging their other existing technologies — this will be of immense value to customers.  And hey, they claim they can understand and classify conversations in 13 languages (Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish).

Experience — I can say from my corporate days that SAS has a superb reputation in the analytical space and has expert resources that small competitors simply cannot match. During the Internet press conference, Katie Paine (a presenter) said, “Can you imagine the design of experiments we can run with these capabilities?”  Now we’re talking!  Putting the SAS computer power and analytical experience to the test in the social media market will produce incredibly powerful, breakthrough insights. We can only hope they make some of the new marketing innovations available to us little guys!

Market access — This move just makes so much business sense for SAS. They are already providing powerful analytical software to many of the most important companies in the world.  They are already embedded in the corporate cultures.  They speak the language. This is a perfect market extension for them.  They already own these customers and this is way to gather in the social media monitoring revenue as well.

Integration with traditional systems — SAS already provides their customers with services such as marketing campaign management, customer experience analytics, marketing performance management and web analytics. Add the social web on top of this and you are looking for some powerhouse combinations, some potentially breath-taking insights.

So that’s why SAS is going to kick social media butt.  And notice I didn’t even mention the basic analytical capabilities or user interface.  I’ll leave that to the tech writers. Besides it doesn’t really matter.   Nobody will really leverage technology in this space for competitive advantage when all the underlying data is already available.  Making the technology do tricks is the easy part. Having the market presence, integration capabilities, and customer access — now that’s something that SAS can take to the bank.

Is there still room for the other players?  Of course.  First, SAS is going for the large enterprise market. Bring $60,000 in annual fees just to get a seat with the basic platform and $180,000/year for the deluxe model.  That leaves 90 percent of the market for the other guys to squabble over.

Who does this impact the most? Probably Radian6. They’ve been working the large enterprises like Dell and Pepsi so this will be a tough new competitor on the enterprise scene.  But hey, this is a white-hot, still-emerging market. I would expect to see consolidation and players dropping out on the lower end of the market before the higher end, and even that is going to take some time.

What do you think?  Who are the big winners and losers out of this?  How will the market be impacted?

I’m often asked to explain the social web … in three minutes or less.  Difficult!   But I’ve come up with a simple way to describe the importance of social media in my presentations that might be useful to you when you meet those people who want you to explain all this stuff like “Tweeter and Facebox.”

And it’s easy to remember:  Evolution, revolution, contribution.

EVOLUTION

Here is a brief history of communications:

• Men on fast horses
• Town squares
• Printing press
• Mail
• Telephone
• Radio
• Television
• Internet
• Email
• Mobile
• Social web

If you break it down like this, it makes an impression that this is really the next stage in how people communicate.  Now pay attention!

REVOLUTION

So what makes this unique?  What pushes the social web into the same rarefied category as the printing press or television?  Two things:

1) This is two-way communication. Everything else on the list above is one-way.  The message isn’t being controlled by an author or a news anchor or an advertising executive. People are talking back. That’s intense.

2) For the first time in human history, we have access to free, global, real-time communication. There is no other word to characterize the implication of this development but “profound.”

CONTRIBUTION

The distinguishing characteristic of the social web that most resonates with people is “contribution.” People are the publishers.  If the content is coming from common people it’s the social web. What are people publishing?

• Ideas
• Videos
• Opinions
• Criticisms
• Commentary
• Entertainment
• Everybody publishes … including folks vitally important to you like employees, customers, competitors, partners, suppliers, people who love you, and people who hate you.

… so don’t you think you should be out there listening to these people?  Learning from them? Serving them?  And in the case of your competitor, pummeling them?

So this is the easiest way I’ve found to describe the power, importance and uniqueness of the social web in three minutes or less.   What do you think? What did I miss?

Jay Baer is one of the few bloggers I’ve found who consistently provides business-based, practical marketing advice.  I usually agree with him.  But he made a reference to social media marketing on a post this week that struck me as odd:

“… unlike every other marketing tool for the past 200 years, it’s a meritocracy, and that benefits us all.”

I’m only picking on Jay because this is the most recent iteration of a theme I’ve observed countless times — the opinion that somehow the social web is in a special new category where you actually have to EARN the trust of your customers.  Another variation is that the social web has “changed everything” about business and marketing.

No, it hasn’t.

The free market economy has ALWAYS been a meritocracy and always will be. If you don’t provide a quality product or service and you don’t represent it in an honest and compelling way, you won’t earn your way into the hearts and wallets of the world’s consumers.

Pre-social media, pre-Internet, even pre-mass communications, the fundamental tenet of marketing was this: Establish a brand promise based on consumer trust and never, ever break that trust. The concept is simple, the execution is extremely difficult.

Marketing is a continuous war to promote and protect your brand, whether it is a company, hospital, university, sports team or individual.  Social media offers an exciting new way to connect, but the marketing fundamentals are truly still the same.

The social web is just a new battlefield, not a new war.

How is the social web affecting your battle plan?

The Economist is one of my favorite magazines. I usually read it cover to cover. So imagine my excitement when I saw their special report this week, Social Networking: A World of Connections.

After I read the report, I concluded — to my surprise — that there was really not much new in the report. This is not a negative reflection on The Economist. I believe it’s a positive reflection on the efficiency of Twitter to stream the most important news and trends my way before they get summarized by a business periodical.

Nevertheless, there were a few interesting nuggets I wanted to pass along:

>>Follow me on Twitter signs are appearing on the doors and windows of small businesses around the world. Asurvey found that 17 percent of Britain’s small businesses were using Twitter. They saved an average of $8,000 a year by cutting out other forms of advertising.

>>  A survey of 1,400 chief information officers conducted last year by Robert Half Technology, a recruitment firm, found that only 10 percent of them gave employees full access to social media networksduring the day, and that many were blocking Facebook and Twitter altogether. The  executives’  biggest  concern was that social networking would lead to “social not-working.”  Some bosses also fretted that the sites would be used to leak sensitive corporate information.

>> An astonishing amount of time is being wasted on investigating the amount of time being wasted on social networks.  One study estimated that personal use of social networks during the working day was costing the British economy almost $2.3 billion a year in lost productivity. Another concluded that if companies banned employees from using Facebook while at work, their productivity would improve by 1.5%.

>> The magazine described Facebook’s “hacker culture.”  Their head of engineering’s motto is “move fast and break stuff.”  What matters is getting fresh products out to users quickly, even if they do not always work as intended. To generate new  ideas, they hold all-night hack-a-thons to at which engineers work on their pet projects. This Red Bull culture maybe why Facebook has just one engineer for every 1.2 million users.

>> Survey of 300,000 Twitters users showed more than half tweeted less than once every 74 days and 10 percent of all users account for 90 percent of all tweets.

>> Facebook’s audience is bigger than any TV network that has ever existed on  the  face  of  the  earth.

>>In Asia several social media companies such as Japan’s GREE, South Korea’s Cyworld and China’s Tencent, are already making healthy profits from sales of games, premium personalization options, virtual goods, and custom backgrounds.

>>Salesforce.com predicts that demand for corporate internal social networking services will riseas managers realize that they now know more about strangers on Twitter and Facebook than they do about the people in their own companies.

>>Intel estimates it has saved millions of dollars a year in fees by recruiting senior managers through LinkedIn rather  than using headhunters. US Cellular said it saved more than $1 mm last year by using a LinkedIn system that produced good candidates faster than traditional recruitment channels.

>> Social networks have made the labor market more transparentin another way too. A survey by CareerBuilder.com of  2,700 executives last year found that 45 percent of them looked at job candidates’ social network pages as part of their research, and more than a third of those had unearthed information that put them out of contention. Time to turn up those privacy settings?

Some interesting stuff!  Of these facts and trends, which jumps out for you as having an impact on the way you do business?

Illustrations: Part of The Economist report.

One of my pet peeves is this whole “snarky” thing. 

I often see people excuse away their unprofessional on-line behavior by saying “Well, I was just being snarky.”

Since when is it acceptable to be rude, sarcastic and dismissive to other well-meaning, professional people?   We probably wouldn’t act that way in a face-to-face interaction but somehow in the bizarro world of the social web, it’s OK as long as you call it snarky.  Inexplicably, it’s usually the more experienced bloggers who hide behind this position, and seem to be proud of it.  They wallow in their snark. 

Gratefully, {grow} has usually been a snark-free zone.  The folks in this community take accountability for their thoughts and words and don’t hide behind euphemisms.  Thank you. 

As for those who mask cynicism and cruelty behind snark, grow up.  Be accountable.  Be a leader.  Set an example.

Whew. That felt good. : )

Addendum: The day after I wrote this post, I saw this quote from American entertainer Conan O’Brien, commenting on his emotional exit from the Tonight Show: ”I hate cynicism.  It’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”

I have a new follower this week.  And this is her Twitter profile.

Notice anything odd?  Of course you did … you already read my headline and your momma didn’t raise no dummy.

When I saw this anomaly I tweeted it out and asked for ideas on how something like this could occur. A couple of the many replies I received:

CarpData

@markwschaefer devil’s advocate: not everyone on twitter is a biz, or has a purpose. maybe a 3rd party app is using as a membership engine

jaywilliamsPR

@markwschaeferre: missprisci – check out her 1,000-yard stare. She’s as mad as a box of frogs.

neicolec

@markwschaefer I think “she” is associated with this (weight loss) site. http://priscillaproberts.com/ Looks like she’s building a following

tnrkitect

@markwschaefer they are using one of those automated follow services. Not sure how they get around the limit, but they do.

greglinn

@markwschaefer And she’s on 19 lists, but still no tweets!

For the record, I sent Priscilla a DM, expressing my genuine curiosity.  No response … no surprise either!

What’s your take on this?

1)  How can somebody skirt the Twitter system and get 7,000 folowers with nary a tweet?

2) Let’s say I did follow her back.  What are the implications?  How would missprisc use me to make money for her nefarious weight loss schemes?

3) And why is she mad as a box of frogs?

Miss Priscilla P. Roberts, why torment me like this?  You are such a little Twitter Tease.

I’d like to start with an excerpt from a a recent Gregg Morris post. This is an email from one of his associates, expressing frustration at an inability to convince small businesses to engage in social media marketing:

Social networking is making zero inroads into any of the businesses (SMBs) we have visited and interest in “mining” those networks is similarly zero.  It’s not that they are rejected as future possibilities, but rather that SMBs haven’t time for it, since they sense the costs far exceed the benefits … The facts are the facts – SMBs are still the same as they always were: overworked, scratching for dollars, but now fighting even harder for market share. They are competing not just with local competition but also with online, distant suppliers and, of course, big box retailers.

To the point: Joe average – architect, restaurant owner, retail store – are not stupid, nor are they unaware of the need to handle their customers better. All I see … is the same, stupid Social CRM Expert-type of messaging. A bunch of esoteric bullshit skimming the surface of the problem, with no real solution offered. Everywhere I look, they all say the same thing: “You have to communicate with your customer…”, “you need to serve your customer…”, “you need to do this, that or the other…”. Lots of “you needs”, but few “here’s exactly how”

This little rant hit a chord for me because I teach a social media marketing class for small businesses and I constantly hear these same concerns.

There is a business cultural gap that is keeping many SMB’s from working this channel: Typical SMB ”advertising” is a hand-off. All the work is done by an ad agency and/or the advertising sales people.  There is little personal time expenditure and the cost/benefit is usually easily measurable. Not so with social media marketing.  There is more hands-on doing and the results may not be immediate.

When I consult with small businesses, I recognize that for many, the time commitments and demands of maintaining a consistent, effective presence seems overwhelming so I help them cut through the hype and FOCUS.  I encourage them to consider five very practical questions:

1) Do I know enough about social media marketing to make the right decision for my business?  Not knowing the possibilities would be the same disadvantage as operating a business without knowing such a thing as television advertising existed.

2) What is mybusiness strategy and how could a social toolkit align with my key initiatives?

3) Are my customers using the social web?

4) Are my competitors using this channel, and what are the competitive implications if I decide to participate or not?  Could I create advantage by being an early adopter?

5) Do I have the resources, or can I acquire the resources, to conduct limited, focused experiments to see if working through the social web can provide a cost-benefit exceeding traditional advertising?

After my students walk through these questions, they usually conclude a) yes, this is something with a lot of potential and b) there are practical and manageable methods to approach this if I stay committed and focused.

Does this make sense to you?  What is your experience with SMB’s and the social web right now?

{grow} community alert: Pete Mosely, a frequent contributor to {grow} has a new eBook out on promotion fundamentals which is a nice companion piece to this blog article.

Awhile back I put forth a “success formula” to create business benefits through social media:

Connections + Meaningful Content + Authentic Helpfulness = Benefits

The more I see and hear and learn about the social web, the more I’m convinced this is spot-on.  You can see the whole article here, by the way.

I’m learning that within this formula, content is a SEVERE bottleneck for most companies.  Here’s why:

1. Companies are piling on to the social web and are desperate to provide content that will cut through the clutter. It takes a special talent to do that. Typically, they don’t have that special talent … but are willing to pay for it.
2. I’m sure you’ve heard stats like, “more content has been created in the last five years than in the history of mankind.”  I either made that up or I heard it someplace (or both) but I’m sure you’ve heard similarly ridiculous statements.  There is a kernel of truth in there, however.  There’s already too much freaking content for any normal person to keep up with.  And the problem is going to get worse.  In fact, it will never get better. The need for content seems insatiable. This exacts more pressure on companies to not only develop “meaningful” content, but content that will knock your socks off.  Every day.
3. The need for “authenticity” is an artificial barrier set by the social media country club that is keeping some people from ghost blogging. (Article on how to do it RIGHT is here.)  That barrier will go down as the price companies are willing to pay for content goes up.  There will be plenty of content-whores around for everybody.  And I mean that in the most respectful way.  

So here’s the business plan: Come up with a posse of technical writers/content whores who can churn out blogs on a variety of subjects (maybe organize by verticals) and fill this out-sourcing market niche.  I would do it myself but I’m far too lazy.  

So there it is.  Business Idea of the Year!  Go be the Wal-Mart of content.  The Blog Super Store.  Content Whore Warehouse.  Whatever, just go do it and I’ll be the first to hire you for my customers.   See, you can’t tell me I never did anything for you. : )

The GE Social Media Team: Gary Sheffer, Jen Walsh, Sean Gannon, Lisa Lanspery, Mike Eisenreich, Megan Parker and Vivek Kemp