• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, November 13, 2009

Upon the release of Social Media Marketing for Dummies, the latest edition to the "Dummies" series, Online Media Daily posed a few questions to its author -- Shiv Singh, vice president and global social media lead at Razorfish. Singh has been with the agency since 1999, working in the Boston, New York, San Francisco and London offices. But now that his book is out, brands may no longer need agencies to unlock the secrets of marketing via social media.

Q: Other than dummies, who is this book for?

A: In a sense, this is the most 'un-Dummy' Dummy book. It is for marketers in organizations of all sizes, from small businesses to the Fortune 100 companies where marketers are more narrowly focused and are deep experts. In fact, I'd even suggest that it's a misnomer to think that the 'Dummies' series is for Dummies.

It's also about a lot of advanced concepts made simple for efficient learning and focusing on what's important. The same applies to "Social Media Marketing for Dummies." It tells you everything you need to know to succeed as a marketer in the social space. It's not just about the basics.

Q: What's the most common mistake brands make when it comes to social media?

A: Marketers often make the mistake of trying to do too much too quickly. Many suffer from the "me too" syndrome. If a competitor is doing something special, they feel the pressure to do the same -- even if it is out of sync with their brand or their customers. This pressure comes from the marketer's bosses, the social media specialists, the analysts, the advertising agencies and the media.

It is extremely important to recognize that as a brand, you can only participate successfully when you have permission to do so with your customers (or have a way to create that permission). Along those lines, it's important to start with strategy and do something that makes sense for your brand, that is in alignment with your business objectives and resonates with your customers.

Q: Is "earned" media more important than paid media in the social realm?

A: Building authentic relationships that provide meaningful value exchanges with customers, and especially the customers that influence others, is most important. That can happen in a variety of ways, whether that be through paid or earned media or with those efforts working together. In the social realm, there's nothing better than true engagement between customers and brands (through the employees who represent them). And with that in mind, I'd say yes -- earned media is more important, although it is hard to always earn the attention, and that's where paid and even owned media help jump-start the engagement.

Q: Are Facebook and Twitter the only properties that really matter for social media marketing?

A: Absolutely not! Facebook and Twitter are certainly the tip of the spear, but I've seen many companies have significant success with the other social platforms, their own community sites and even mobile-specific social solutions. It all depends on your business objectives, what your competitors are doing, where your customers are spending their time and how you want to differentiate yourself with what ideas. The blogosphere, for example, cannot be ignored. In the book, I explain how to evaluate the different social platforms to help you achieve your business and marketing objectives.

Q: Measurement is considered a big stumbling block to the growth of social marketing. Can you briefly explain the scoring system Razorfish has devised to help solve the metrics problem?

A: The SIM Score that we pioneered borrows from the philosophies of the Net Promoter Score and determines the relative health of a brand in the social Web. As a brand metric, it tells the brand how it's doing compared to its competitors in an indexed fashion. The SIM Score gets especially interesting when you track it over time against sales and other business metrics. For some brands it serves as a leading indicator for sales, and for others it plays the role of helping them understand whether a social media PR crisis is a real crisis or not.

I recommend that the SIM Score (which is explained in my book) be used for every brand. Having said that, it is worth noting that it isn't the only metric that matters. Based on a brand's business objectives, marketing strategies and tactics deployed, different forms of metrics matter. The metrics must always tie to the business benefits.

Q: What's the key difference between social media marketing online and via mobile?

A: I believe social media marketing can take place on any digital platform or device. Mobile as a specific platform has the added benefit of increasingly being location-aware (with the smartphones specifically). On the flip side, mobile platforms don't allow for experiences as rich, but it doesn't mean they still can't be immersive and incredibly social ones too.

I'd add that this emphasizes the point: you need to start with a social strategy and then examine how it translates to different platforms and devices -- whether that be your company Web site, a platform like Facebook or a device like an iPhone.