I borrowed the headline above from a recent B-to-B article by Jeff Ernst, a principal analyst at Forrester Research. I think it perfectly underscores something I’ve been saying for a while now: It’s about the power of the idea, not the tactic. (My compadre @billhanifin has a similar mantra: Technology enables. Imagination wins.)

While most companies are now testing the social media waters with a presence on Facebook and Twitter, it’s best to have a strategic plan of attack before diving in. In the words of Ernst, “Starting with tools and tactics spells disaster. You need to start by understanding the social behaviors of your target audience and defining the big ideas that will attract and engage them.” But before discussing big ideas in social marketing…

First things first: you’ve got to show up.

To paraphrase Woody Allen, “90% of social marketing is just showing up”, and by that I mean being active on whatever social media tool you’re using. That means starting conversations, answering queries, and when necessary, defending your company or brand. To do this, you’ve got to set aside a small portion of your day to social media activities. (For me, its 20 minutes each morning.)

Next step: you need a big idea.

What’s a little more challenging is the next 10% of the equation—coming up with the big ideas that give your customers something to talk about. As Jillian Ney pointed out in a recent post on Social Media Today, “The motivation has been to collect fans and followers, which have resulted in many branded social spaces not actually providing any entertainment or value.” In many ways, a great social media campaign has much in common with a great traditional ad campaign—the best ones are centered around a big idea. To achieve “big” status, your idea needs to have the power to inform, entertain and/or engage your customers, while getting them to take a desired action, whether it’s signing up for e-mail, retweeting a message or checking in with you on Foursquare.

Here’s are three social media ideas that I think work hard for their brands.

Why? They go beyond simply blasting messages into the social media space, and actually get people to interact with the brand. They also leverage ideas that are natural tie-ins to the image and essence of the brands being promoted.

• Paula Deen and “the real women of Philadelphia”. A promotion for Philadelphia Cream Cheese, it invites customers to submit original recipes using Philadelphia brand products, with 16 finalists selected to join celebrity chef Deen in a live “Cook Off” where four grand prize winners will be chosen. While I’m not a big fan of celebrity endorsements, this one feels like a natural, since it’s easy to imagine the down-home Deen actually using Philadelphia Cream Cheese in her recipes. Importantly, the site has done a nice job of putting Paula’s ebullient personality to use through online videos and social media like a “live chat” on Twitter.
• Coleman, “the original social networking site”. Coleman, the camping gear company, has done a great job of tying their brand into social networking, starting with their clever “original networking site” positioning. A Facebook page promotes their easy-to-build tents with a “Summer Time in no Time” giveaway. There’s a Twitter page that could be a little more active, but does address the occasional customer query, plus a YouTube channel and Twitter app that fittingly let you check out “creepy campfire stories”.
• Fair Tweets from Ben & Jerry’s. Another big idea comes from Ben & Jerry’s. We think of Ben & Jerry’s as a very socially conscious brand and they prove it with Fair Tweets, which uses Twitter in a way I haven’t seen before to promote Fair Trade, a global organization that works to get better deals for farmers. It works like this: You go to the Ben & Jerry’s Fair Tweet page, and being typing in a tweet. The site then “puts your unused Twitter characters to use”, by turning any leftover characters (from your 140 character cap) into a message about Fair Trade. 33 characters left? A 33-character message is tacked on to the end of your tweet. Very cool and an ingenious way to spread a public service message.

How about you. Have you seen or worked on any big social media ideas lately?

If you’re of a “certain age” and have teenagers in the house, then you might have caught yourself proclaiming that your young Millennials (Generation Y) are wasting their lives playing Halo, World of Warcraft, or tinkering with their MySpace page. Since adolescents revel in the opportunity to point out hypocrisy in their adult family members, imagine the return volley of comments about how much time we Boomers spend glaring at the television watching yet another sports event without anything more than a trip to the fridge to break the action.

The best life lessons learned from sports are by playing them, but once in a while you can learn by watching.  The other night as I wandered between the NHL and NBA playoffs, the NFL draft, and some meaningless early season MLB, I had a vision. I found an answer for the big question about Social media.

Everyone knows about Social Media, few understand it, and there are proponents and opponents voicing opinion with increasing volume. To some, employing a social media strategy can accelerate achievement of business objectives, to others it is a greater waste of time than one more round of GTA3.  The one unifying question is “how do all these pieces fit together?” Almost every business person I know expresses interest in executing a social media strategy that is right for them.

Well I’ve got an answer and it is heavily basted in sports analogy:

The Play by Play Announcer: Your web site is the necessary foundation for your social media strategy. Present the facts without too much hype and hyperbole

Color Commentary: People blog for different reasons. I think it serves as a platform for opinion and to demonstrate innovative ideas and thought leadership

Player Roster: Being part of LinkedIn is today’s method to assemble your business network and document a circle of influence

Groupies: They hang out by every locker room door and some you’ll talk to while others you avoid. Establishing an authentic presence on Twitter allows you the same liberty

Inner Circle: You’ve got to have real friends you can trust. Approach these for deeper conversations via email, the phone, and in person (yes, in person should be part of your social media strategy!)

Your Agent: Few of us can do it all. We need a few Subject Matter Experts (SME’s) around to fill in our gaps and to add bandwidth. Find someone who really knows how to coordinate your social media efforts from a technology standpoint

Fans: Filling the seats is a requirement for success. Building a Facebook presence can be your biggest funnel to gain fans and you can connect further with them via the other channels depending on how relationships develop.

Sponsors: Someone has to pay the bills. We often call these folks “clients” or “customers”! The objectives of a social media strategy should include serious business objectives and revenue goals. Your valued customers/clients should be treated in a special way. Newsletters and more personalized digital correspondence works well to create deeper links

I’m interested to have your feedback on fitting the pieces of the social media puzzle together. Are you ready to play ball?