A typcial Friday evening I will find my teenage son chatting with friends on Facebook and watching online videos. Although none of his friends live in our neighborhood, he stays connected with what is going on in his "chosen community" through the web, as well as share their "chosen" entertainment through distributable video content.

A number of times this school year he and his friends decide to go to a football game or a movie at the last minute; activities that are not new to any of us, but what is new is how these activities are planned and organized.

When I was growing up we would have to call our friends individually to make plans. If you were not home and missed the call, you missed out. By the time I reached high school we did have the option of 3-way calling and a few friends had pagers, but for the most part you had to be at the right place at the right time to be included in the social activities.

Today kids only need to check status updates of their friends to know where they are and where the action is. From my perspective, this has enabled today's generation to be much more social.

Another activity that I have recognized is the "popular kids" in high school are striving to have a lot of friends on Facebook. What this means is that these kids are more "approachable" to the average kid than when we were young and you had to be invited into their "clique." On one had kids are more connected with each other and have the ability find common connections, on the other hand the wrong experiences and attitudes spread further and faster than ever before.

When my son decides to move away from the PC and on to his XBox 360 I get to observe him interacting with friends in game play that is both creative and competitive. I have seen him exercise his leadership skills and his skills of persuasion. On the game he is connecting with an expanded network of friends that live around the country and around the world.

In the more recent news there have been studies about whether or not social media makes us more or less social. My observation is that social media not only makes us more social, but gives us choices about who we want to socialize with.

Although social media, like all social actions, has it's risks and downsides, I believe overall it has provided more opportunities for our children than we could have ever imagined in our own youth.

I had a great opportunity to speak at the Foundation Center today as their kick of session for Arts & Humanities month. The room was packed full of people interested in learning more about Social Media. The two main points I hope they walked away with is:

1. Your best assets are hidden, locked away in you heart, mind, and experience and social media is a place where you can set them free through your stories.

2. To go viral, you need to find ways to make your audience part of your show.

“Going Viral” refers to a phenomenon when a message is passed on from peer networks to peer networks until it has received widespread attention and popularity.

Long ago stories went viral when they were passed on from village to village, and from generation to generation. The printing press and the increase in people who were able to read and write enabled more stories and ideas to be spread virally at increasing speeds and with greater reach.

Broadcast television and radio allowed an even greater reach and speed of transmitting messages, and the Internet seems to have broken down all barriers of story telling.

However, the more ways that became available to share a story the more demand was put on people’s attention. For a message to resonate with the target audience it needs to be relevant, entertaining, informative and inspirational. For a message to go viral, it needs a little bit of magic.

Why do you want to reach a wider audience?

All the world is a stage and many people and brands would like to have the leading role. However, before trying to launch a viral campaign, it is best to step back and ask what the return would be of a viral campaign.

Are we trying to get feedback from the community (Crowdsourcing)? Promoting a campaign that encourages feedback from the community is a great way to create a buzz, but the person or organization needs to be prepared to demonstrate that they sincerely are interested and are listening to what the community is saying.

Are we trying to share something newsworthy? If so, why is it newsworthy? What is the story and how does it impact the lives of the people who would spread it throughout their networks? How does the news impact their lives? Is it entertaining or inspiring? Or is it just a promotional pitch?

If it is a promotional pitch again, what is the value for someone to pass the pitch along? Would it help them look like an expert? Will it help them solve a problem for a friend or peer? Does it appeal to their sense of humor or values? Is is simply entertaining?

Just like in ancient days when stories were passed on from village to village and from generation to generation, the story teller had some investment in the story, the story had meaning for the one telling the story and the one receiving the story, today’s messages have to offer something personal to the audience if it is to passed along.

For a message to go viral, it must entertain, educate and inspire.

According to the book Secrets of Social Media Marketing, the kind of creative that is likely to go viral includes;

• Knockout creative that's funny, shocking, intriguing or surprising.
• An idea customers can relate to and care about.
• A clearcut message so people are able to pass it on with one sentence.
• An easy way to pass it on - a link, embedding code, "share this" button, email to a friend, etc.
• A concept that builds relationships with customers by getting them to interact with others.

It is not enough just to get a message passed around, a viral message should serve a purpose, have a measure objective. When creating a viral campaign consider the following;

• What is the campaign's desired outcomes based on current organizational goals and  how  will the success of the campaigned be measured?
• When the campaign goes viral, what are some of the things we can capture and learn about the behaviors of our audience? What are the current assumptions and knowledge about the audience?
• How agile is the campaign? Can it adapt to new findings?
• What is the call to action for the campaign? Is it measurable?

A VERY successful holiday campaign was one that was sponsored by Office Max. More than 123 million “elves” were created in just six weeks.

According to Online Media Daily; The success of "Elf Yourself," created by EVB San Francisco and Toy NY, is in part due to three fundamentals, according to a spokesperson for the agencies:

1)Keep it simple,

2) Make it personal and

3) Give people a reason to pass it on.

There are three local brands who have continuously impressed me with how they represnt themselves online. Before I found them, or they found me online, I had bever heard of them. After getting to know them online, however, I have decided to make an effort to support their business.

Last week I was thinking about what these brands did that was different and special? How did a brand develop a relationship with me? Let's explore what I have learned from them....

Which Wich in Norcross http://twitter.com/WhichWich_Forum

I had never heard of this restaurant, and when they started following me on Twitter I did not immediately follow back. I would not be interested in following a sandwhich shop. But when you visit their twitter profile you will notice that they are actively connecting with their community. They retweet often, but they also engage in sincere conversations, about sandwhiches. They first hit my radar when I saw them referring to me (@sherryheyl), then I saw other people within my network engaging with them (@whichwich_forum). I eventually began following them and receive updates on sandwhich specials and sandwhich ideas. It is like getting to know your local store owner who has a passion for his business. I then willingly became a fan on Facebook. I have since told people to check out their sandwhich shop when they are in the area as well as making sure I visit their shop as well.

Which Wich's story is really not a new idea. It is the story of a sandwhich shop owner developing personal relationships with members of the community. They only novelty is the tools that are now available to do so.

Another Norcross brand that caught my attention is http://twitter.com/NorcrossGAGhost

Whomever is behind these tweets has truly taken on the personality of a mischeivious ghost with a warped sense of humor. Like @whichwich_forum, @NorcrossGAGhost is actively engaged in conversations with community members. The ghost posts interesting information about the paranormal, seems to know the history of celebrity ghosts, and personally reaches out to community members to invite them on a ghost tour.

NorcrossGAGhost @sherryheyl Weather is great for a ghost tour!! Join me FRI & SAT 8PM www.norcrossghost.com Thks for RTs

When @NorcrossGAGhost hosted a tweepup, I made it my mission to attend, simply to meet the personality under the sheet. The experience was definitely paranormal. I will be going on my ghost tour next week.

Finally, the ultimate example of a great local brand is the Wren's Nest. Lain Shakespeare is not only an amazing story teller with a wonderful personality, he is also incredibly tech savvy. I find myself checking out what the Wren's Nest is doing online and taking notes of what can be done. Recently The Wren's Nest (http://twitter.com/thewrensnest) was featured in Atlanta Magazine, where it was pointed out that

what he lacked in financial know-how he made up for with a mastery of social media.

I do not know about Lain's financial know-how, but he definitely knows how to bring a house to life through the various online channels.

If you are struggling with how your brand can build meaningful online relationships, I highly recommend following these three brands and taking a few notes from them.

On Friday I had the opportunity to speak to a packed room of artists anxious to learn how leverage social media to increase attendance and reach new audience members.

At one point during the presentation we compared email with social media. One attendee was willing to use some of her numbers as an example.

Her Facebook Fan Page has a few hundred fans as well as her Twitter account. Her tweets are often retweeted by a few media Twitter accounts, therefore potential views of her updates grows exponentially each time it gets retweeted.

However, even with exponential growth, her reach via the social media channels that she has been nurturing is not even close to the reach of her email list of over 15,000.

So is that a knock out hit for email?

Many organizations have spent a lot of time and effort to grow and nurture their email list over many years. Of course email will have a greater reach than the Twitter account or Fan Page that was set up this year. Does this mean we should just stick with what we already have significantly invested in?

Consider that Social Media is rapidly becoming part of the everyday routine for the majority of the population.

Some recent statistics show:

• 3 out of 4 Americans use social technology

• Visiting social networking sites is the 4th most popular online activity –actually ahead of personal email

• Time spent on social networks is growing at 3x the overall Internet rate, accounting for 10% of all Internet time

• Estimated 100,000,000 videos are viewed on Youtube per day • 13,000,000 articles are available on Wikipedia

• 3,600,000,000 photos has been received on Flickr since June 2009, that’s 1 photo per every two citizens of this planet

• 5,000,000,000 minutes spent on Facebook each day

• Total amount of time spent on Facebook increased by 566% between December 2007-December 2008

• Facebook’s greatest growth in global audience numbers has come from people aged 35-49

• 93% of social media users believe that a company should have a presence in social media

• 85% of social media users believe that a company should interact with its customers in social media

Resources: Nielsen, Global Faces and Networked Places, 2009 Forrester, The Growth of Social Technology Adoption, 2008 DiggitalBuzzBlog.com Wikipedia.com

So does the above statistics and accelerated trends mean we just throw out our email list and start focusing on our social media efforts?

You do not need to look at your marketing efforts as an either/or situation. The reality is many people still want to receive email newletters. However many people are also opting out of email newsletters in favor of RSS feeds from their favorite blogs, or to keep up with their favorite brands and organizations through Facebook, or to get real time updates via Twitter or SMS.

We are at a time where your audience wants to be able to choose what information they get and how they get it and they expect to have those options.

As communicators, we not only can leverage social media channels to provide those options to our audience, but we can also leverage our social media channels to increase viral word of mouth marketing and to get better insights into what people are interested in and responding to.

Here are five steps that will help you evolve your email marketing list to the growing world of social media. 

1. Let your email audience know that special discount codes are available via Twitter or on your Facebook Fan page.
2. Highlight the hot topics on you social media sites on your email newsletters.
3. Virtually introduce your email subscribers to your most engaged community members.
4. Only provide an introduction to your stories via email. Provide a link to your blog were your audience can read and respond to the rest of the story.
5. Social Media is still new to most people. Provide tips and tricks to your email audience about how to use Facebook and Twitter. 

Have you seen or used other tips and tricks that blend email marketing with social media marketing? Please share.