Perhaps the most difficult aspects of Social Media to embrace are the changes in our behavior and overall philosophy it necessitates in order to earn relevance and ultimately prominence in consumer hearts, minds, and markets.

Simply put, Social Media makes us vulnerable and officially ends an era of perceived control threaded by the illusion of invincibility.

Everything we thought we knew and valued is now in dire need of reassessment. We are entering into a time when we are affected by voiced sentiment in the public spotlight and backchannels of the social Web. What we hear, see and observe can and should touch us.

Businesses are now responsible for not only delivering beneficial products and services, but poignant, personalized, and aspirational experiences as well. This is true today and tomorrow as we compete for the future that is revealed through the actions and words of the people we wish to reach and inspire.

In Social Media, We are All Brand Managers

The process of evaluating, measuring, and defining brand stature was once relegated to a brand manager, expert, or team and shaped by a top-down process of activities designed to reinforce the message and personae. Now however, the brand is the direct responsibility of each person representing it, individually and collectively. When we listen to the activity that populates the statusphere and the blogosphere, we find that in addition to the overall brand, conversations map specifically to the individual departments that define the business foundation, which ultimately supports brand stature and resonance. In turn, these activities inspire immediate and long-term responses either directly through focused interaction or indirectly through product refinement, adaptation and overall messaging, targeting, and positioning.

Individual representatives indeed contribute to the collective repository of brand value and perception through distinct engagement and contributions while also assessing and embracing themes and trends to move the business in a more meaningful direction altogether.

No One Group Owns Social Media

Whether social media management and engagement is centralized, distributed or community powered, the sum is always greater than its parts. Individually and collectively, we contribute to the cycle of customer acquisition, retention, loyalty, and influence as dictated by market behavior and the direction that these influencers dictate implicitly or explicitly.

Among others, online dialogue connects consumers, influencers, and prospects to brand ambassadors representing…

- Sales
- Product
- Service/Support
- HR
- Partners (Value/Design Chain)
- Marketing
- Communications
- Finance

In many ways, we become social seismologists, monitoring and measuring the human seismograph as it triggers activity that affects us both positively and negatively. As actions speak louder than words, we must put our words into action. And, part of acting is reacting whether it’s through conversations, change and evolution, or a fusion of participation and modification. By engaging we learn how to diffuse situations, empower communities and more importantly, how to discover and embrace new ideas that beget prominence.

The Brand Dashboard

Much in the same way we compete for attention through the frequency and volume of appearances in the consumer attention dashboard, brand representatives track brand health, risks, and opportunities through a dedicated brand dashboard. And, almost every division will have a person or team dedicated to orchestration of their respective social activity. These socially-tuned tools allow for customized search, reporting, and analysis across multiple social properties, revealing market intelligence in real-time and charting our next steps to stay connected and relevant. These dashboards radically improve the rate in which each team within the organization learns, reacts, and adjusts, delivering pertinent solutions, information, and products/services in the process.

If we evaluated conversations on Twitter for example, we could examine activity through the lenses of distinct branches of the business (click the image for a larger version).

There are many solutions to consider including PRNewswire’s Social Media Metrics, Radian6, Techrigy, among many others. For the sake of this discussion, I’ll highlight free tools to maintain a balance while demonstrating possibilities. In this case, we’re tracking “iPad” in Twitter, but we could use the aforementioned services to track activity across the entire Web.

Using TweetDeck or Seesmic, for example, we can track the product/brand (column 1), which represents the information stream that benefits the community manager or the person responsible for trafficking conversations in an sCRM or SRM workflow. This column or columns will feature keywords that include the brand, products, market-related topics as well as competitors (column 2).  In addition to a community manager, column 1 is also important to customer service to identify potential issues and directly respond where applicable and also document discrete issues that can expedite fixes or resolution.

Column 1 also benefits the brand team as conversations allow for brand managers to analyze the composition and collection of important words used in conjunction with the brand to gauge success, failure, and areas for improvement (see below).

In addition, the combination of columns 1 and 2 impact marketing and communications (as well as IR/finance) professionals who can also benefit from the ability to assess influencer activity, facilitate rapid research to build target lists based on keywords, and dictate participation/response programs when and where necessary – all in real-time.

Columns #2, 3 and 4 are designed to monitor and measure potential or existing sales and the invaluable feedback that will define our immediate and future revenue landscape. This research allows us to materialize invaluable information tied to lead generation, loyalty, and revenue.

Here, we’re tracking our keywords in conjunction with other keywords that reveal the state of potential transactions. In this case, and really just for a simple example, you can see the dialogue around competition in addition to conversations that feature a combination of our keyword plus other verbs that surface intention, (iPad) + “buy” and  “thinking+about” + “buying.” When fused with word clouds, we can grasp a greater awareness for opportunities to shape sales activity.

If we hone in on keyword combinations that reflect referrals and recommendations, we can discover activity related to assessing the value of the Net Promoter Score (NPS), customer referrals, community advocacy, and word of mouth. In addition, we can also peel back the layers that historically prevented us from realizing emotion as shared with peers. Adding words to our fixed keyword searched such as “love,” “hate,” “sucks or sux,” “want,” and “fail” creates a bridge between impressions and the specific instances and people behind the words. This process is critical in the earning of empathy in order to champion meaningful responses and more importantly, change.

For example, from a recent discussion with Richard Binhammer of Dell while attending Le Web in Paris, Dell actively monitors for compatibility issues with other products to initiate fixes before they amass into critical issues en masse. This dramatically decreases the time to market from ID’ing the problem to offering a solution, many times, well in advance of the masses ever knowing a problem ever existed.

To What Extent…

Custom feeds stemming from keyword searches can represent much more than referral and loyalty value of our customers however. They can also paint a picture of experiences and sentiment to engender opportunities to ensure satisfaction. Exporting feeds or text from your dashboard into a system such as Wordle, we can see conversations and associated opinions in one cloud. Tip: Using Searchtastic, as one option, you can export tweets directly to Excel for review and organization.

Understanding sentiment and trends at a high level is important when understanding the state of consumer satisfaction online. We can review samples of reactions across multiple networks in order to identify communities of relevance and as such, prioritize our attention and activity – and to what extent. This real world and suggestive information also sparks ideation and hopefully innovation within to inspire significance outside.

Using one of the many available tools such as Twitter Sentiment and Trendistic, sentiment and trends anchored to keywords become visible. And, when combined with word clouds, doors representing new possibilities unlock.

For a deeper view into the conversations contributing to the sentiment outlines, solutions such as pb.ly by PeopleBrowsr offer real-time dives into positive, neutral, and negative conversations in the form of management-ready reports.

For representatives across the organization, these reports (from PeopleBrowsr and other service providers) deliver the intelligence necessary to take action. And, therein lies one of the greater challenges facing social media champions today. Change is only possible where potential for improvement is recognized.

Organizations must have an infrastructure in place to support a clear and present path that channels insight from the outside to the center and back out again as we earn relevance, trust, and loyalty among influencers, customers, peers, and prospects. Defining a workflow that unites brand representatives to streamline the system for identification, prioritization, assignment, and follow up of important instances will ensure structure and organization around a formal process. A workflow also connects ideas and trends to change agents, product architects, and decision makers and those who can transform words into action. It’s how businesses will survive this ongoing (r)evolution of Social Darwinism.

Monitoring keywords across various departments is only part of the equation. Measuring activity that hits designated landing pages completes the chain of connectedness. All experiences must have a beginning and an end and if we’re not providing direction that leads to decisive action, then we essentially send our prospects from a very interactive and dynamic environment to a static dead-end. Read: If you think that sending people to your corporate website is a means to an end, think again. Chances are, your www.brandname.com is in desperate need of focus; most likely a complete social makeover is overdue.

In the now web, it is our job to define the experience. Many brands find success in the implementation of dedicated landing pages that extend social engagement while still channeling visitors into a rich hub of information and action. If participation and engagement represent the point of introduction, then the landing page is the beginning of the end. And as one thing ends, something new begins.

However, without insight into the activity in and around the LP, we are blind in our direction.

Our influence lies in our ability to elicit action and in turn, measure it.

The social Web is an incredible conductor to fusing action and metrics to measure the cost per action (CPA).

Information is the concrete in which we build the foundations for interaction, service, direction, and commerce.

Integrating a mechanism for measuring activity on that landing page allows those responsible for defining experiences and engendering change, not necessarily the Web team or Web master. We’re empowered, and required, to analyze the results of our activity. Here, we can ascertain our top referrers, our highest converting words, as well as costs per action, click and overall cost of acquisition.

There’s what we say and then there’s what they say…which carries greater weight?

If we’re not listening, observing, and learning from the world around us, we lose touch with those who dictate the perception, reputation, and direction of our brand.

In the end, we earn the relationships we deserve.

Connect with Brian Solis on Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Google Buzz, Facebook
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One of the biggest challenges for organizations today is managing the flow of information about their brands, products, and services that occurs in social media channels, including microblogs (such as Twitter), social networking sites (such as Facebook), blogs, and online forums.

More than ever, customers are using social media to spread the word about the brands they like and perhaps more importantly, don’t like. With the introduction of each new media channel, the landscape changes, often dramatically, and organizations need to adjust quickly to stay ahead of the curve. To help achieve that goal, organizations now adopt formal processes that structure how the listen for mentions of their brands in Social Media and B2B Marketers are no different.

If you are to survive and thrive in this connected world, you must mine — not just monitor — these conversations to respond and glean insights that will inform your future strategy. And with the number of social media channels you need to monitor, you may find collecting the information to be a daunting task.

To help make things easy, Avaya uses a 3-tier monitoring system that includes the following:

TweetDeck – Monitors Twitter feeds for mentions of our brand name. We typically see 40 to 50 percent of social media mentions happening in Twitter so this is a good place for us to focus our energy.

Radian6 – Acts as a safety net to capture mentions of our brand name in Twitter and beyond such as on blogs, in comments, on forums, and in social networks such as Facebook.

Networked Insights – Acts as my “away game” and tracks mentions of specific product names when our organization’s name itself may not be included such as “Replace Octel” (an Avaya product near end of life) and it can also track mentions of specific competitive situations that might be handy to know about.

In the last post we discussed the Social Media Budget Ratio in B2B Marketing and a healthy portion of my budget is focused in this area of listening for mentions of our brand name that are an indication that a conversation that could lead to a sales opportunity or a support opportunity are at hand. To me this is the most fertile area on which to prove ROI. Giving excellent support to your customers is priceless, especially when you look at the cost for acquiring a new customer. If my team can turn a customer service issue into a delighted customer who is tweeting good things about us on the social web what’s the ROI of that? The trick is you just have to be able to listen and show up to the right conversations!

Related posts:

1. Social Media Budget Ratio in B2B Marketing In my new advisory role for the members of MENG…
2. What’s your Social Media diet? I often get asked the question – how do you…
3. Avaya makes Business Communications more Social It’s a very exciting day for me here at…

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Found this nice piece of infographic that explains almost in detail everything about the social media channels, all in one comprehensive, brief picture. 10 social media channels are illustrated here including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Linked In, Digg, Stumble Upon, Yahoo Buzz, Reddit and Delicious, where the possibilities and non-possibilites with characteristics of each channel are explained. A must have for every social media enthusiast. Impressive stuff !

Click on the picture to see the full resolution pic.

Original source – Drew McLellan, CMO (Awesome site, check it out !)

View full post on DailyBloggr – For the Blogging, Search, Social Media, Web Enthusiast

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Low Cost Innovation Confuses Buyers With Excess Choices
As a Web Strategist, you seek to balance the three spheres of business, technology and community.  Perhaps a challenging one is the ‘technology’ sphere as you’re faced with the decision of build vs buy, specialized vs broad, cheap vs expensive.  The choices are staggering –there are over 100 community platform vendors, thousands of Facebook developers, iPhone apps, and Twitter apps being created each year.  Despite the proliferation of innovation, one thing remains constant: the economics and strategy of buying doesn’t change.  As a result, the web strategist must first understand their strategy, develop the right parameters for buying and recognize the strengths –and weakness of each type of partner.

First, Buyers Must Understand Their Level of Sophistication
Companies that purchase technology and services must first recognize where they are in the sophistication curve.   Those who are new to social technologies should seek out strategy and education first, and rely on external experience and expertise to deter risk.  Those that are in mid level should focus in on specific needs –forgoing unneeded services and features.  Expert level companies are thinking of a holistic experience for customers and are focused on scalability, interoperability, and integration.  In many cases, these expert level companies may be focused on building their own tools and resources –rather than relying completely on third parties.

For Growth, Focused Vendors Go Broad
Interestingly enough, some companies with rich histories in a particular vertical are also expanding to larger markets by rebranding efforts.  Take for example 10 year old Neighborhood America, a community platform with strong background in government, local, and federal agencies as a vertical as recently rebranded as INgage networks –giving them a broader reach to the enterprise space and international space --read their FAQ and watch their video to learn more.

As Market Matures, Vendors Become Specialized
Radian 6, Visible Technologies, Nielsen Buzzmetrics, and TNS Cymfony have all broad reach across multiple industries by being fairly agnostic to any particular vertical. Of course, they each have experiences in particular verticals and likely have a majority of clients in one industry over another, but that’s a contrary position to Revinate, a company I recently met with that focuses in on deep integration with the hospitality industry.  Their listening platform, while it doesn’t go as wide to cover the ‘brand scope’ comes pre-rigged with connections to travel rating sites like Tripadvisor, Yelp, and other consumer rating sites.

Note that no vendor is perfect, and if they can do it all, you won’t need all their offerings, and their price point will be high, as a result, understand the strengths –and weaknesses of all.

Social Technology Buyers Matrix: Broad vs Specialized vs Do It Yourself

* The Altimeter Group takes pride in transparency and openness in research and analysis, as a result, the starred companies are currently clients, read our disclosure page.

Web Strategists Must Plan For the Long Term
Regardless of which path you choose from Broad, Specialized or DIY, there are a few baseline considerations the web strategist must factor into their long term planning, they include:

• Deploy systems that are designed to scale. Buyers must demand access to the product roadmap and understand where the company is headed at least in their 2 year plan.  The benefits of a SaaS technology vendor is that you can quickly scale your deployment on a turn key basis, while on premise has it’s upsides for conservative industries –scaling can quickly become an issue and out-the-door fast deployment.
• Deploy systems that can integrate. Only buy systems that have protocols that can allow data to be accessed by other parties, and put into terms of service your data can be accessed at any given time, no questions asked.
• Analyze their partnership and alliance relationships. Selecting a company that has a healthy set of partnerships and alliances will ensure that they your company will fit within the heterogenous ecosystem of the social web.  Yet, probe deeper, during initial sales calls, vendors will flash ‘Nascar slides’ with dozens of logos of partnerships, find out how many relationships are truly deep integration and aligned product roadmaps –not just former one-off projects.

Although this post is buyer focused, technology vendors with a broad focus should start kindling relationships with channel partners that can resell and focus in on specific marketers.  For example, Radian 6 is known for offering its service to PR and digital agencies who can then focus in on specific markets.

Above: Roderick, a designer, has created this handy print out after I posted, thanks.

View full post on Web Strategy by Jeremiah

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I had the privilege of attending a mobile conference today in Chicago, and was literally struck at the agenda. Surprised enough at its contents to gape awkwardly in my chair.

Throughout the day there was one single talk (out of more than thirteen), that was not dedicated to or centered around Android or iPhone. One. Blackberry, you get third place.

Listening to the events, it became even more lopsided. What came up in questions? What was mentioned in notes on future firmware releases? Android and iPhone, over and over again. Whatever the topic, there were two platforms.

This is not due to the conference being unbalanced; no one complained about the programming. It reflected people’s interests accurately and fairly. There was not even and minor grumbling, it was a complete non-issue.

But it gets even more pervasive. A fourth year CS major was presenting his app for the hackathon judging (a classic thing to watch, full of bleary eyes and unresponsive phones), and discussed when he had picked up his knowledge of iPhone programming. “I took a class last quarter, it was half iPhone and half Android.”

I’m no fan of Fox News, but to steal their tag line that does not sound very fair and balanced. Or is it?

Get it? Ballmer had it right. It’s about developers developers developers. Sure, iPhone and Android have the current advantage in terms of market size, and created apps. But that is transient, things can and always do change. Hell, in the last year Android has grown to be so strong that Apple decided they had to sue the whole damn thing to keep their crown.

What is not trivial is the mindshare among developers. What are they tinkering with? People coming up are learning iPhone and Android, not WebOS and Windows Phone 7 series. Either Palm, Microsoft, and RIM get some mindshare among the upcoming developers, or they will be gentrified to a slice of the older dev set that they have already acquired.

It’s time for them to put up or shut up. Microsoft and RIM have the dollars to build up their app offerings and acquire developers, Palm does not. Meaning? Palm is not only behind, but probably cannot catch up. Microsoft and RIM can catch up, or not. But it’s developer time in a big way.

Not to quote the internet, but developers or gt**.

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I’m here in Phoenix Arizona as a keynote speaker to the Council of Alumni Associations Executives, these are the fine folks that manage alumni orginizations where you may have gone to college.  The reason I’ve been invited to speak as a professional speaker is their world, like many other industries, is being severely impacted by the social web.

All middlemen and aggregators are being impacted by social. Take for example, brokers, associations, sales people, classified listings, journalists, music labels, encyclopedias, and even analysts are feeling the threats of these simple –yet interruptive technologies.

Now, college grads may use social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn to connect with each other –without being part of fee based alumni organizations. Connecting directly to each other using a few mouse clicks, they can fuse lifelong bonds, help each other personally and professionally in near real time.

Yet, many savvy orgs have realized the opportunity. Altimeter Researcher, Christine Tran did research for my presentation and we found that some Alumni orgs like Stanford, Cal, Auburn, Purdue, and Brown are participating in Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn with varying degrees of success.

I want to extend the conversation here online, and realized that a useful matrix would be very helpful in understanding the risks and opportunities that are abound in at least five different use cases, they are:

Impacts to Alumni Organizations In A World of Social Networks: Five Use Cases

For Alumni Organizations, Social Technologies Is Akin To Harnessing Fire
In the long run, it’s never a zero sum game. It’s rare we see industries completely collapse from disruptive technologies, as the savvy will adopt and create new business models increasing value. The opportunities are great for college alumni organizations, these same tools that threaten their existence can be used to increase membership through advocacy and word of mouth, reduce costs in organization, and a wealth of content being created by their own members.

Oh yeah, I’m pleased that I was recently featured by my alma mater, SFSU, go ‘Gaters.

If you’re a graduate from a college (or high school) and can think of opportunities how the Alumni organizations can benefit from social technologies –or you’ve already displaced them by connecting directly with your peers, please leave a comment below.  Update: I met CalTech’s Andy Shaindlin, he writes a smart blog on this topic, also read Alumni Futures.

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When the majority of the web is only talking about Social Media, there are actually a bunch of guys who’re using it, utilizing it and practicing it as part of their strategies, like Social Media agencies for instance. These guys are thought leaders in the field, and while other BS, they give insights about it and practical examples of how social media is implemented and executed in the current market. These presentations are just plain awesome. Here we are with the 15 amazing presentations on social media strategies, some of them dealing with what social media is, while some deal with how to integrate social media to niche industries. Quite honestly

1. Social Media 2010: Competitive Advantage and Survival

2. What can we learn from the Obama Social Media campaign

3. What the F**k is Social Media ?

4. Social Media in Asia

5. Web 3.0 – This time its personal

6. Content Strategy for Social Media

7. How to make the best use of SEO and Social Media

8. Brand Promotion and Reputation Management with Social Media

9. How to Build Social Media Presence with Facebook and Twitter

10. Social Media for Realtors

These are presentations with amazing ideas and value, though we’re all on the learning curve, information and insights like these sure helps on any day.

View full post on DailyBloggr – For the Blogging, Search, Social Media, Web Enthusiast

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Yesterday, we had the second in a three part webinar series about social strategy, the first, which you should listen to, focuses on understanding customers though socialgraphics. The following slides and recorded webinar (a bit faint, so turn it up) are a intended as a foundation for companies of all sizes to develop a strategy based on business objectives –not the latest technology.

We believe in Open Research and encourage our knowledge to become the foundation for growth of ideas, and encourage you to learn, share on your blog, and put into educational materials. Those that offer social services or technologies, should consider embedding this on their site, and using to quickly educate prospects and clients –furthering the industry forward.

The Social Strategy Trilogy: Webinars and Slides

Part 1: Socialgraphics help you to understand your customers
Part 2: Developing a Social Strategy (you’re here now)
Part 3: Getting your company ready (sign up)

Attend the Final Third Webinar: Getting Your Company Ready
To attend the third no cost webinar, we’re accepting registrations (we had over 1100 this second one) so please sign up.

Above, Listen in to recording, it takes a few minutes to get started.

If you write a review I’ll be happy to provide a link so we can hear the perspectives of those that watched, if you found the presentation helpful, please pass it on, and encourage it to spread

Sharon gleaned five key points

Charlene cross posted from the Altimeter blog

The file is also on Dropio

The tag from the event was #socialstrategy, see the Twitter discussion

The next webinar, “Social Strategy: Getting Your Company Ready” will be taking place on Wednesday, April 14 from 11 am -12 pm. You can register at this link:

View full post on Web Strategy by Jeremiah

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As 2020 Social’s suite of offerings have evolved, the senior team is increasingly getting stretched across our competency areas and practice areas.

So, Dave leads our business-to-consumer practice and the plan competency, Kaushal leads our business-to-business practice and the build competency and Gautam leads our employee and partner practice and the engage competency, while I help out across all three competencies and practices.

My target is to take Dave and myself off this grid so that 2020 Social can function even when we are away, let’s say, for speaking at conferences.

To get there, we will need to fill three key positions over the next three months: the business-to-consumer practice lead, the build competency lead and the engage competency lead.

Last week, we announced openings for the first two positions:

- Consultant (1): Ideally Mumbai, but also Delhi or Bangalore

Role: Develop the digital marketing strategy and define the business case for social applications and community platforms for consumer and media clients. Establish thought leadership in the domain of how Indian consumers engage with web, mobile and social technologies through blog posts, white papers and conference talks. Set up the Mumbai office for 2020 Social and establish and grow client relationships. Over a one year horizon, manage a team of 5-6 Associate Consultants and Analysts.

Skills: Consumer marketing, digital marketing, business consulting, business development.

Background: IIM or equivalent with 4-6 years of experience.

Reporting to: Gaurav

- Consultant (1): Ideally Delhi or Bangalore, but also Mumbai

Role: Define the functional requirements for social applications and community platforms for clients. Work with internal account managers/ project managers and external design firms/ development firms to ensure that projects are delivered in cost and on time. Simultaneously, find opportunities to productize these social applications and community platforms as proprietary white label solutions that can be re-used across multiple clients. Over a one year horizon, manage a team of 5-6 Associate Consultants, Analysts and Designers.

Skills: User experience design, product management, project management, familiarity with Drupal and Facebook/ LinkedIn/ Twitter/ OpenSocial APIs.

Background: IIT/ NID or equivalent with 6-8 years of experience.

Reporting to: Gaurav

We are also looking for interns to work with us on a part-time basis:

- Interns (4), Delhi or Bangalore, Rs. 5000 monthly stipend

Role: Research how digital and social technologies are changing business and marketing. Identify best practices and case studies for developing social media strategy and creating campaigns for clients. Part time role for 2 to 6 months with a commitment of 20 hours a week.

Skills: Good communications skills, ability to work in teams, eagerness to learn, familiarity with blogs, forums, and social networking platforms like Facebook, Orkut, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr.

Background: BBA or MBA students.

Reporting to: Gautam (Delhi) or Kaushal (Bangalore)

Working at 2020 Social combines the best of both worlds: you enjoy the open and collaborative work environment of a web 2.0 startup, the steep learning curve of a strategy consulting firm and the benefits of being part of an established organization (we are related to 20:20 Media, one of India’s largest independent PR firms).

Send your CVs to careers@2020social.com: it might be your lucky day.

Cross-posted at 2020 Social: Because Business is Social.

As CEO of 2020 Social, I build and nurture online communities for Indian and international clients, connect their customers, partners and employees, and help them achieve their business objectives. Ask us how we can help you.

View full post on Gauravonomics Blog on Social Media and Social Change

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Buzz was introduced by Google with much clamor on Feb 9, 2010. Since then, we have seen a lot of debate around it: Google stepping into the social media arena cannot go unnoticed. Many quickly saw Buzz as a Twitter killer, possibly a Facebook contender; others discounted it as an inconvenience in Gmail; and the rest waited to see how the drama is unrolling.

After its introduction two weeks ago –an eternity in the fast paced world of social media– Buzz raised alarming privacy concerns, and it brought a strong pushback from users due to its noise level. Now that the dust somehow settled on these early issues (both were promptly fixed by Google), one is in a better position to assess Buzz’ impact.

Clearly, Buzz is not a threat to Facebook. The later offers a fully integrated platform to share updates, pictures, videos, games, maps, etc, with a network built on family and friends. I do not see any reason why any of the 400 million Facebook users (133 million unique monthly visitors in the US) would suddenly switch to Buzz, a service tied to Gmail (with “only” 37 millions active users) and no significant additional feature.

So Buzz must be the Twitter-killer announced so many times, right? Buzz can leverage Gmail’s 37 million active users, and Google is a technology powerhouse (read: uptime, speed, ease-of-use, and feature set). This is to be contrasted with a hard-to-grasp active number of Twitter users (possibly as low as 15 millions, but strong of a renewed accelerated growth, hitting 73.5 million unique visitors in January). Also Twitter has not been the most consistent service, with downtimes and delayed tweets every other week.

Yet despite the claims, sheer user numbers, and Google’s technology steamroll, Buzz will not kill Twitter. Remember when LinkedIn introduced its status update two years ago? Then the game in town was to compare it to Facebook. Did LinkedIn’s status update impair Facebook, or even Twitter for that matter? Not a bit. Was that because Facebook and Twitter were so much better than LinkedIn? Not at all. The reason is that LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter have all different purposes, and therefore different usage models. One cannot replace fully one service with another.

For the same reason, Buzz will not obliterate Twitter. Twitter is a non-symmetric network used to access and broadcast information, to establish new connections, to chat, and to freely blab about anything (the later is an un-escapable side-effect of the social aspect…). Twitter users listen and tweet to an audience that has a very small overlap, if any, with their Gmail address books. Similarly, this audience is mostly disjoint from their Facebook friends. Thus unless one can convince family members, friends, acquaintances, and professional connections to all move to Gmail, Twitter users will keep using Twitter for its very purpose.  That is not even considering how users consume tweets. I cannot imagine a serious Twitter user without a 3^rd-party application to manage his tweet streams. Buzz has nothing like it, at least for now. And Twitter’s lightweight and open API create one of the richest and most innovative ecosystem in social networks –the best is still to come.

Buzz will at best coexist with Twitter, at worst slowly get numb and loose its fashionable luster, like other attempts at capturing Twitter’s share. More likely it will fall somewhere in between these two extremes, because it will appeal to Gmail users unfamiliar with Twitter. That is, of course, if Facebook’s future email service does not pick up any momentum, and if Twitter does not bring innovations to its platform. Then you can guess what will be left of Gmail’s Buzz.

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