The explosive growth of social networks across all age demographics is largely because of our social graphs. It’s the mapping of who is connected to whom within a network of peers. And as a result, people are increasingly surfing the social networks and the broader web through the context of their friends and acquaintances—what those friends talk about, what they recommend, and what they consider to be relevant.  

While those numbers are probably accurate for marketers across the board, I wonder whether they capture the complete story. Social Influence Marketing (SIM) is not just about spending on a campaign that can be deployed through a social platform like YouTube or Facebook. It isn't even about building applications for these platforms or paying for "viral seeding". 

SIM is a lot broader than that and can include site side activities like establishing a rigorous brand monitoring program, enhancing a retail website to include ratings and reviews from companies like BazaarVoice or Pluck, making all digital content portable using services like Social Notes and conducting primary and secondary research to understand how exactly peer influence works at every stage in the marketing funnel.

Now I love the industry that I am a part of. Its fast moving, dynamic, controversial and innovative. But every now and then, a comment here or there irritates me. And a recent Businessweek article by Ben Kanz (an insightful blogger by the way) hinting at an impending doom for Twitter does just that. Here are the two reasons why.

Sure the twitter business model is flawed or more accurately non existent. But that doesn't mean that one can't be created around it. A business model that's advertising or even subscription driven through value added services. Many a similar business have been able to provide meaningful value added services for which customers open their wallets. The article while thoughtful, fall shorts in that it assumes that Twitter must make a business out of its current feature set without evolving its features or its business model.

For some theorists, this is the biggest deal since radio. How can and how will the largest brands in the world harness social influence via portable social graphs? With primary research into social influence behavior and big brand case studies, this presentation will make your head spin.

Cast your vote if this sounds interesting. I need all the help I can get. And just kidding about the taxes. Also support the other Avenue A | Razorfish submissions.

The analysis gets interesting when Ashley breaks down the social media mindshare into three categories bookmarking, commenting and rating. The results conflict with a recent report from Forrester on how successful the automakers are in social networking marketing.

Now social media mindshare is definitely not a measure of success but using the premise that any press is good press, the analysis tells you something. I can see a lot more firms tracking activity like this in the future. Many have already begun to do so using tools from the likes of Visible Technologies, Cymfony and Buzzlogic but more are about to enter this space. Some can just start by doing the basic analysis themselves akin to taking Google Alerts of their competitors to the next level.

The way consumers communicate and interact has fundamentally changed. Recognizing that I probably sound like one of those social media evangelists, I do feel that organizations need to adapt as well. Whereas some departments need to adapt just to survive (Corporate Communications and Human Resources are the most obvious ones), others don't need to change but can benefit immensely by harnessing the social influence and the wisdom of the crowds.

And not just the organizations, but the agencies need to change too. Whether it be by encouraging every employee to become experts in the social media space or by hiring or identifying social media champions from within, they do need to identify new leaders. And these leaders need to think in terms of how their agency's service offerings must evolve to keep pace with the ever evolving social web. Ask me, this is something that I worry about everyday.

I delve into how marketers should best use peer influence to their advantage and where I have seen peer influencers have the greatest impact.

As Argelio Dumenigo pointed out to me, depending on your perspective this Sprint advertisement can be a new high or low for social influence marketing. Sprint has offered to pay consumers for using the Instinct in personal YouTube videos. It's basically a product placement contest.

I like how they're honest about it with the phrase "sell out your family." If you participate, you'll need a Sprint phone obviously. It doesn't have to be your own though (meaning you'll be asking all your friends for an Instinct phone and buzzing about the product that way too).

 It's a pretty entertaining contest and even you don't have a phone you may participate just for the opportunity to win the $10,000. Still, the idea of product placement in a YouTube clip is a little weird.

The 5 million pound campaign is the first time that McDonalds has tried to establish a relationship with parents about healthy eating. So rather than market to that actual consumers of McDonalds, the company decided to target the influencers who control the person strings. The parents aren't the ones having the Happy Meals, but they're certainly the social influencers. Avenue A | Razorfish is involved in the digital campaign.