Two of the web’s foremost commentators and thought leaders in the social media space, Chris Brogan and Jeremiah Owyang, has teamed up to bring us an awesome list of 50 checkpoint items to accomplish when augmenting our online marketing strategies. Chris has his original post up here. At the suggestion of one of the comments from @jonburg , Jeremiah has gone ahead and broken up the list nicely into 5 social computing objectives as defined by Forrester Research, where Jeremiah is a senior analyst.

Chris Brogan http://www.chrisbrogan.com

I will now shamefully reproduce the list here after having given due credit and linking to the original authors ‘ posts above. First to Chris Brogan for producing the list, and second to Jeremiah for organizing it for us according to the 5 social computing objectives. In the spirit of sharing with proper attribution, I don’t think either of them will mind too much

Listening: Gleaning market and customer insight and intelligence

10. Build sentiment measurements, and listen to the larger web for how people are talking about your customer.
11. Learn which bloggers might care about your customer. Learn how to measure their influence.
14. Build conversation maps for your customers using Technorati.com , Google Blogsearch, Summize, and FriendFeed.
21. Collect case studies of social media success. Tag them “socialmediacasestudy” in del.icio.us.
25. Search Summize.com for as much data as you can find in Twitter on your product, your competitors, your space.
32. Make WebsiteGrader.com your first stop for understanding the technical quality of a website.
33. Make Compete.com your next stop for understanding a site’s traffic. Then, mash it against competitors’ sites.
34. Learn how not to ask for 40 pieces of demographic data when giving something away for free. Instead, collect little bits over time. Gently.
38. 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.
39. 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).

Talking: Engaging in a two way discussion to get your message out (and get messages in)

2. Build blogs and teach conversational marketing and business relationship building techniques.
5. Create informational podcasts about a product’s overall space, not just the product.
8. Check out Twitter as a way to show a company’s personality. (Don’t fabricate this).
9. Couple your email newsletter content with additional website content on a blog for improved commenting.
13. Try out a short series of audio podcasts or video podcasts as content marketing and see how they draw.
19. Experiment with the value of live video like uStream.tv and Mogulus, or Qik on a cell phone.
23. Explore distribution. Can you reach more potential buyers/users/customers on social networks.
24. Don’t forget early social sites like Yahoogroups and Craigslist. They still work remarkably well.
26. Practice delivering quality content on your blogs, such that customers feel educated / equipped / informed.
28. Turn your blog into a mobile blog site with Mofuse. Free.
30. Ensure you offer the basics on your site, like an email alternative to an RSS subscription. In fact, the more ways you can spread and distribute your content, the better.
40. Learn all you can about how NOT to pitch bloggers. Excellent resource: Susan Getgood.
41. Try out shooting video interviews and video press releases and other bits of video to build more personable relationships. Don’t throw out text, but try adding video.
44. Experiment with different lengths and forms of video. Is entertaining and funny but brief better than longer but more informative? Don’t stop with one attempt. And try more than one hosting platform to test out features.

Jeremiah Owyang http://www.web-strategist.com

Energizing: Letting your customers tell your prospects on your behalf (viral, word of mouth)

1. Add social bookmark links to your most important web pages and/or blog posts to improve sharing.
3. For every video project purchased, ensure there’s an embeddable web version for improved sharing.
4. Learn how tagging and other metadata improve your ability to search and measure the spread of information.
12. Download the Social Media Press Release (pdf) and at least see what parts you want to take into your traditional press releases.
36. Help customers and prospects connect with you simply on your various networks. Consider a Lijit Wijit or other aggregator widget.
47. Spread good ideas far. Reblog them. Bookmark them. Vote them up at social sites. Be a good citizen.

Supporting: Getting your customers to self-support each other

6. Build community platforms around real communities of shared interest.
7. Help companies participate in existing social networks, and build relationships on their turf.
15. Experiment with Flickr and/or YouTube groups to build media for specific events. (Marvel Comics raised my impression of this with their Hulk statue Flickr group).
18. Start a community group on Facebook or Ning or MySpace or LinkedIn around the space where your customer does business. Example: what Jeremiah Owyang did for Hitachi Data Systems.
29. Learn what other free tools might work for community building, like MyBlogLog.
35. Remember that the people on social networks are all people, have likely been there a while, might know each other, and know that you’re new. Tread gently into new territories. Don’t NOT go. Just go gently.
37. Voting mechanisms like those used on Digg.com show your customers you care about which information is useful to them.

Embracing: Building better products and services through collaboration with clients

31. Investigate whether your product sells better by recommendation versus education, and use either wikis and widgets to help recommend, or videos and podcasts for education.
50. Use the same tools you’re trying out externally for internal uses, if that makes sense, and learn about how this technology empowers your business collaboration, too.

Strategy, Training, and Planning
Many of these aren’t directly social media tactics, but they are great rules of thumb.

16. 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.
17. 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.
20. Attend a conference dealing with social media like New Media Expo, BlogWorld Expo, New Marketing Summit (disclosure: I run this one with CrossTech), and dozens and dozens more. (Email Chris for a calendar).
22. Interview current social media practitioners. Look for bridges between your methods and theirs.
27. Consider the value of hiring a community manager. Could this role improve customer service? Improve customer retention? Promote through word of mouth?
42. Explore several viewpoints about social media marketing.
43. Women are adding lots of value to social media. Get to know the ones making a difference. (And check out BlogHer as an event to explore).
45. Work with practitioners and media makers to see how they can use their skills to solve your problems. Don’t be afraid to set up pilot programs, instead of diving in head first.
46. People power social media. Learn to believe in the value of people. Sounds hippie, but it’s the key.
48. Don’t be afraid to fail. Be ready to apologize. Admit when you’ve made a mistake.
49. Re-examine who in the organization might benefit from your social media efforts. Help equip them to learn from your project.

When I stayed in Burma (2001 – 2004), I had the opportunity to watch this amazing display of acrobatic skill and showmanship while travelling through the country as an ordained Buddhist monk from monastery to monastery. I got this in my Twine digest today, and you can see the write-up about the film Mystic Ball over here. I got my Twine invite only a couple of weeks ago, but it is the most valuable and high signal ratio social network out there to date. When you subscribe to groups or Twines around topics of interest, you always get a daily digest of all the high-value articles and links that has been Twined or shared by memebers who also belong to that group of Twines. Never has a day gone by that there was not a couple of articles that I clicked on to go read or save and share, mostly to do with Web Development, Open Source, Linux, Myanmar (Burma), Tibet, Buddhism, Social Networking, Semantic web 3.0, Twitter and WordPress . My Twine profile is over here. Please leave a comment or send me a mail if you would like me to send you a Twine invite, it is in invitation-only beta at the moment, but I have a couple of invites to share

From the website:

This lovely, lyrical documentary introduces Chinlone, a Burmese sport that soars somewhere between acrobatics, hackey sack, and Balinese dance. This game, unknown outside of Burma, became an obsession for Greg Hamilton. For the past 20 years he’s painfully tried to whisk the distinctive woven-rattan ball, faithfully returning to Burma to play in tournaments, becoming the first westerner to do so. What makes this film so rewarding is Hamilton’s candid autobiographical account of his slow learning. At first he is laughed at, but after 8 years of filming, he slowly gains respect from the Burmese. Chinlone is a beautiful non-competitive game. You “win” by keeping the ball in the air for your teammates — a fit metaphor for life, and a perfect frame for this extremely contemplative but dynamic film. Greg’s story is really not about sport, or the Zen of Burmese Hackey Sack, but about how to learn and love.

– KK