After reading a post by Chris Brogan about Blockbuster Movies I found myself quite frustrated.

Social Media as a communication tool for brands is relatively new, so I don’t expect the world out of those who are out there doing “social media marketing.” Hell I am learning new and better ways to do things all the time, so I am not devoid of social media sin.

However I am always bothered by how many people try and boil SMO down to the most basic tasks:

• Create a page/profile on network X,Y,Z
• Create a group on network X,Y,Z
• Give that group special access to stuff
• Create a widget for network X,Y,Z
• Put a video on YouTube

ugh….

What happened to the strategy?

Those are social media tactics… and by themselves they are ineffective. Social Media works in two situations, when there is high quality content and when there is a conversation. Simply putting a profile on MySpace/Facebook is neither a conversation nor high quality content.

Those can be tools to lead social networks to a place where they can start a conversation or get high quality content, but the simple tactics are played out, old, and ineffective.

Especially the movie scene where people are itching to talk about their expectations, favorite actors, the results, etc… people are dying to talk about, and with others who are interested or part of the movie. Why not facilitate it in a real way, rather than creating another contact point. If you want another contact point run a commercial.

Chris Brogan recently wrote a post about 50 ways marketers can use social media to improve their marketing. A few blogging related ones of note…

Build blogs and teach conversational marketing and business relationship building techniques.

Learn which bloggers might care about your customer. Learn how to measure their influence.

Recommend that your staff start personal blogs on their personal interests, and learn first hand what it feels like, including managing comments, wanting promotion, etc.

Map out an integrated project that incorporates a blog, use of commercial social networks, and a face-to-face event to build leads and drive awareness of a product.

Turn your blog into a mobile blog site with Mofuse. Free.

Track your inbound links and when they come from blogs, be sure to comment on a few posts and build a relationship with the blogger.

Find a bunch of bloggers and podcasters whose work you admire, and ask them for opinions on your social media projects. See if you can give them a free sneak peek at something, or some other “you’re special” reward for their time and effort (if it’s material, ask them to disclose it).

Learn all you can about how NOT to pitch bloggers.

Some good tips in there specifically about blogging, and plenty that apply even if not directly.

If you have been keeping up with the latest blogs and twitters you probably know that personal branding has become a hot topic as we learn more about this “social media” space. While it is easy to argue that if we all do have our own “brand,” that it has existed long before the internet and especially longer than the growth of social media. Certainly politicians and other people of fame carry some level of their own perceptions, thoughts, and emotions that are associated with them.

And as it turns out with the invention of the internet, websites, blogs, podcasts, and twitter we find many people who do seem to have their own brand online. It is more than “so and so” who run’s a website, but people who have a specific set of emotions and qualities that are now associated with them due to how they communicate and converse in the social space online.

It is fitting the user experience expert David Armano write about personal branding in the latest AdAge Digital as he himself has a strong personal brand, and is a great example of how a personal brand can change your life. David Armano through his social participation has clearly become a thought leader and is now writing for publications, speaking at conferences, etc…

Other people have developed book writing careers through a strong personal brand, opened new career doors, and built businesses based on their personal brand. In advertising Olgivy comes to mind, of course this is much before the internet and social space; however it simply means that we now have more tools to establish our personal brands online.