Earlier this week I had lunch with a colleague who is in marketing for a publisher in the East Bay.  As we traded war stories and marketing strategies, my friend asked me - "Are you guys doing anything with social networking?"  I had to admit, I have no Tweed cred.

On the heels of this admission, I came across this latest 5 minute online video on the changing face of how people use the Internet.

Setting aside the cool soundtrack and the flashy graphics, what are the implications here?

The evidence is overwhelming that social media is a tsunami of change for how people interact socially.  Even President Yudoff tweets. But what are the implications for organizations like ANR?

• We should be concerned about what bloggers are saying about us. (Do we know what bloggers are saying about us?)
• Social media can be a powerful tool for organizations like 4-H and Master Gardeners that rely on volunteers and where there is a high level of social involvement.
• Units that play a role in disaster response (like fires and oil spills) or have breaking news can benefit from tools like Twitter.
• Organizations that post information frequently, or have changing information can benefit from RSS feeds.
• Tools like Twitter and Facebook can put a more human face on large organizations among certain demographic groups.

Social Media Marketer is one of the fastest growing job titles.  But is the use of social media as a marketing tool effective?

Once again, Jakob Nielsen has some answers with a study about the effectiveness of distributing content through social media and feeds.

It's an interesting study, and it points to the key issue with using social media for marketing - "business messages that appear in a context that is permeated by social messages."

Top annoyance?  Too-frequent postings -- marketing messages crowding out messages from your "real" friends.

RSS feeds were viewed as more trustworthy than social messages.

The study was conducted in two rounds, three years apart, so they were able to track changes in use over that time period - and the findings are surprising.

The summary as well as a link to the full report can be found at Nielsen's Alertbox site.