Today’s communication strategies can benefit from social sciences such as sociology and anthropology. The study of society and human relationships and the communities people create and participate in is instrumental in any communication program. Of course, it requires integration into every proactive marketing strategy, well before these are planned and executed. When socialized media is applied to the communications program, it gives you a foundation that unites awareness, proper engagement, and technological applications to increase unobtrusive human interaction—and this leads to meaningful relationships. These applications, powered by social platforms and the people who use them, offer the channels for people to converse, create communities for interaction, and ultimately influence behavior. However, technology is just that: technology. Social Media is about people and how we can approach them as informed and helpful peers.

You’ve seen the tools change and the networks evolve over the years. It might seem archaic to mention this, but not that long ago, the fax machine was a critical pillar for day-to-day business. The point is that the mediums for distributing, sharing, and discovering content will also continue to grow and evolve. These tools will become more sophisticated, while also providing simpler ways for humans to initiate and cultivate relationships with each other. Remember, however, that tools tend to change more quickly than the people who use them. (Old habits die hard.)

On the other hand, with every new tool or service that’s introduced, our attention shifts to the latest and greatest innovation. Should we focus on Twitter? But wait, now there’s Plurk. Oh, and now Identi.ca is the latest micromedia tool to surface; we’d better jump over there, too.

The speed at which new technology and platforms for communicating are introduced is almost mind numbing. It’s contributing to the possibility of a great attention crash and social network fatigue. However, the opportunity for engaging existing and potential stakeholders is unprecedented. Before you overwhelm yourself with all the potential tools and networks to leverage on behalf of your brand or your clients, it is crucial that you step back and realize that you’re the communication bridge between your company and the people you ultimately want to reach.

So how do you keep up—and how do you even start? Everything begins with observation (a.k.a. listening). Social Media is rooted in conversations, relationships, exchanges, shared ideas, and common, interests, similar to societies and communities in the real world. Therefore, identifying the online communities where your constituents are congregating and collaborating is the first step in determining—well, everything.

Social Media helps you uncover all the relevant online communities that warrant observation. The most important lesson in Social Media is that, before engaging anyone, you must first observe and understand the cultures, behavior, and immersion necessary to genuinely participate in the communities where you don’t already reside. People now enjoy amplified voices in the world of Social Media, which carries into the real world, and now represent a powerful channel of peer-to-peer influence (for better or for worse). However, marketing at them or broadcasting messages in these online communities is about as welcome as the telemarketers who constantly call your home every day.

You cannot afford to ignore this reality. New marketing necessarily integrates traditional and social tools, and builds upon successful, ongoing relationships with the media, influencers, and people. That’s right: It’s about relationships, and it’s about people. Relationships serve as the foundation for every interaction, whether with traditional media, New Media, or just everyday people. And remember, you’re now reaching individuals, not audiences. Focusing on this fact will keep you on the path to relevance.

The tools you use will change over time (evolve, multiply, and even condense). Some tools will win over others, some will thrive, and others will fly under the radar (but perhaps still remain relevant). It is imperative, however, that you not let the tools overwhelm you. But don’t underestimate them, either (especially soon after their introduction).

We often hear these laments: “With so many tools out there, I don’t even know where to begin,” and “I don’t know why any of this matters—maybe I’m just too old.” These “whines” represent the classic generation gap regarding how we communicate. First, just admit that new tools will continue to be introduced. Nonadopters (bystanders) might find the onslaught of new technology overwhelming. Younger generations, however, are already communicating with each other through social networks and social tools (and, once properly guided, have an advantage for joining and leading more strategic conversations online). However, hope is not lost for the other generations. These groups just have extra work to do to catch up (perhaps even a complete overhaul on how they currently do things).

Social Media is forcing changes that should have happened a long time ago in everything related to business, from PR and sales to customer service, to product development, and also to corporate management. Whether or not you jump on board, these changes will continue to occur. And, to be honest, not every current PR professional will survive the transition: The fittest and those most willing and able to adapt will be the survivors. The PR industry ultimately will benefit from these changes and the winnowing of its ranks, and will thus be propelled into the forefront of marketing communications. The PR professionals of tomorrow should all be engaged in meaningful conversations using the Social and New Media applications that enable forward-moving dialogue. In fact, every department of every business will soon find itself embracing social strategies.

Social networks and their associated cultures are defined by the people who participate in them. In turn, each network flourishes as its own island. Over time, a somewhat impenetrable culture emerges (which helps to ensure a more meaningful and commercial-free experience among its residents). Of course, networks need to sustain themselves through revenue, and many sell advertising. But advertising differs from direct marketing, especially from conversational marketing. In fact, making the network flourish with a strong sense of community and culture isn’t marketing at all, in the truest sense. Transparent and genuine participation is now an effective form of marketing, without the “marketing” or the snake oil. The bottom line is that you have to understand the sociology and the dynamics of human interaction within particular social networks before you can either write them off as useless or participate within them in the hopes of becoming a resource and building meaningful relationships. You must also understand that technology supports the sociology of the network—it doesn’t replace it. Marketing departments of tomorrow will require their savvy communicators to take the time and develop the right approach to understand the various networks.

You will most likely agree that customers and their peers are critical to your success. After all, their emotions, experiences, state of mind, and resulting influence within their community are imperative to the perception of the brands you represent. Broadcasting controlled messages is no way to earn trust and relationships. We must earn them (and, thus, their business, loyalty, and referrals). Social Media gives us a first-ever opportunity to overhear relevant conversations that, in recent times, would have transpired without our knowledge. And we can join in before they build and landslide into something that catches us off guard and potentially lunges us into a reactive crisis communications emergency.

Essentially, Social Media empowers customers to effectively sell and represent your brand as a powerful and influential surrogate sales force. Similarly, Social Media can negatively affect your brand if it is left to open interpretation and dissemination freely without input or guidance. Therefore, Social Media is driven by sociology and the study of human behavior and online cultures. You must begin to effectively identify relevant online community cultures and listen to and respond directly to the people within them.

Other professionals agree with us, including Jason Preston, a professional blogger from the Parnassus Group, who discussed how to avoid the snake oil in his blog post “[Brian] Solis Is Right: Avoid Classic Marketing Like the Plague in Social Media.”

So, you decide to jump in. Great, but slow down and think about what we’ve discussed so far. Underestimating social networks is dangerous. We’ve already witnessed too many companies attempting to spark conversations by “marketing” to “audiences” through “messages” within social networks. This is traditional marketing, and it’s insulting to everyone on the receiving end. If you follow this approach, it can have disastrous consequences for you and the brand you represent. The conversations that drive and define Social Media require a genuine and participatory approach. Just because you have the latest tools to reach people, or have played around with them, doesn’t mean you can throw the same old marketing at them. We continue to stress a very important point (in every chapter): Having access to the social tools doesn’t make you an anthropologist or a sociologist.

Social networks are no place for real-time experimentation. You’ll find that the communities and the people within them are unforgiving in their tolerance of sales or marketing pitches. Businesses who are leading the way can learn much by listening and observing before establishing contact.

Many companies are participating in social networks as a form of proactive outbound customer service with a twist of social marketing, including the following:

They’re engaging customers on their turf, using their channels of communication, to help customers (and potential customers) solve problems and find information, or simply to engage them in valuable dialogue.

Margaret Mead is known for championing a style of anthropological research called participant observation. When she studied in the field, she set out to both observe people and participate in the life of the community. Mead believed that this was the only way to more fully understand a culture. Participant-observation fieldwork is the foundation of contemporary anthropology. In Social Media, communities take the form of social networks inhabited and governed by the people within them. People establish associations, friendships, and allegiances around content, objects, products, services, and ideas. How they communicate is subject to the tools and networks that people adopt based on the influence of their social graph (and the culture within). It’s important to note that cultures are unique to each social network and require a dedicated ear and observant pair of eyes to objectively learn and ultimately adapt to each.

Through social sciences, we can now see the very people we want to reach, along with their shared content, thoughts, perceptions, and predispositions. By doing so, we’re reminded that we need to humanize our story and the process of storytelling. The process of observing and listening gives us insight and instills empathy to more realistically enter each online society as a citizen of each respective community in which we hope to participate. By listening, reading, and participating, brand marketers have an opportunity to make their brands more approachable and shareable than ever before. This is how you humanize brands, create loyalty, and earn your customers’ business. Yes, there are many networks. Yes, they’re thinning our attention. And, yes, this is the new form of media and influence, and it is transforming corporate communications, traditional media, and how people communicate with each other.

The 2008 U.S. election year represents a good example of the sociology of New Media in Web communities. Before we even discuss 2008 and the presidential campaign, however, we want to trace the roots of Web sociology back to 2004 and the well-recognized campaign executed by Howard Dean. Dean’s campaign was way ahead of its time and led the election participants into a new realm of communication through social networking. In many of Dean’s early campaign speeches, you may have heard him say, “You don’t know me, but you will.” Many feel that Dean meant what he said. For Dean, his platform spread quickly via the Internet. A few key players and their forward-thinking strategies propelled Dean’s run for office. Joe Trippi, Dean’s campaign manager, brought the experience of six presidential campaigns and knowledge from a former career in computer software. The campaign soared to heightened awareness from Trippi’s expertise in technology and managerial skills. Dean also had two Web experts, Matthew Gross and Zephyr Teachout, who were the brains behind what people described as Dean’s “Web sensation.”

Dean’s Web site used a blog and various forums that helped to spread the word quickly. Best of all, a strong community formed on the Dean Web site—it was the community that built the Dean campaign, which, in turn, built a one-of-a-kind run for office. Other collaborative strategies involved meetup.com, the Web site used to organize events for different groups. The Dean for America campaign was able to gather hundreds of people from cities across the country through the meetup.com strategy. Although Dean did not win the Democratic nomination, his campaign achieved noteworthy success: He garnered more than 140,000 supporters before he even announced his candidacy.

We agree that the Obama campaign is a good case study of how sociology plays an important role during an election year. It’s about the people and their issues, causes, and concerns (and an understanding of the technology to support and drive the campaign causes). A New York Times editorial opinion by Roger Cohen published on May 26, 2008, and mentioned by Ives pointed out that Obama’s people understand the importance of networks and how to open up the Internet to make great dialogue as opposed to war; through the dialogue, people are able to change what he calls the “centerpiece of policy.”

The Obama campaign truly sought to identify the people they wanted to engage, and then engaged those people within their own communities on their own terms (in the process, giving those people the tools and content to empower them to become surrogate evangelists). Obama’s Democratic nomination campaign will forever be a hallmark for future campaigns. The 2012 election, and every election thereafter, will be driven by Social Media, social tools, and the people who populate influential social networks.

The sociology of Internet communities is a fascinating topic that will continue to be an area of focus and study as more people embrace and define the Social Web. In looking at how Internet cultures have emerged over the years, there’s a huge shift in the way people are making connections, building relationships, and forming distinct cultures in the Long and Short Tail. Even more important, human interaction in PR, or any form of peer-to-peer marketing, has been and always will be the cornerstone of the best relationships.

Today, with a shift in how media is democratized, people favor the movement toward user-generated content and such related practices; they comment on blogs, review and rate content, make friends in Web communities, use mashups, and build their own groups on social networks. Whether it’s an election that inspires younger and older generations alike or it’s U.S. corporations learning that people want to interact with the human voices behind the companies, sociology play a tremendous role in educating professionals on how to better observe, listen, learn, and participate with the people who will mean the most to their causes or concerns and who will take a desired action.

The Web is a dynamic and complex environment laden with pride and passion from the people who drive the communication. It’s an environment for sociologists and communications professionals to study, as it continues to present the greatest potential to foster and deepen the strongest relationships between people and between people and their brands. It starts with a combination of social and traditional tools to discover, listen, learn, and engage directly with customers. This early research enables you to find where the relevant conversations are taking place, with your underlying goal being to help people make decisions and accomplish things because of your participation. It’s about gathering intelligence. This process also removes the tendency to “market” at people and naturally shapes a more honest, meaningful, and informative approach.

You probably didn’t realize that part of your job is to become a Social Media sociologist and participant observer. In fact, your job now is to get to work—study online societies, their culture, and how they interact, and thus build meaningful relationships that will contribute to the company’s brand equity, resonance, and overall bottom line.