The most exciting new area (to me) of social media marketing, or as @ShivSingh, my latest guest on DishyMix from Razorfish likes to call it, “Social Influence Marketing,” is mining the clusters of connections to identify new prospects for products and services.

Similar to the concept of behavioral targeting, marketers and researchers believe that if they target the friends of an existing customer, they will find “birds of a feather” prospects for their goods.

There are a number of companies using social graph data including Lookery (my interview with Scott Rafer, CEO), Media6Degrees and UNBOUND Technologies . These data mining and ad targeting companies are leveraging your data: the things you “fan” on Facebook,  your personal profile information, your network of connected friends (and god knows what else!) to find new prospective consumers connected socially to you so they can market products to your friends if you are a customer.

UNBOUND Technolgies can take a marketer’s existing customer list, compare it to their database of all known LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter users and come up with a rank order list of who, among their existing customers, are the most influential. If a brand has a Facebook “Page” (Fan Page), they can map the most to least influential fans, based on number of social connections.

Here’s an article from Business Week that gives you some idea of how important this data mining of social graphs is to the social net companies and marketers.

Learning and Profiting from Online Friendships

These next two images are very telling. These are my Affiinty Map and my Influencer List from UNBOUND Technologies.

First you can see, of my 3,200 Facebook friends, what the top Celebrities/Public Figures, Brands, Bands, Services et cetera are of the people to whom I’m most connected.

If I were a brand (I’m certainly trying to be!) doing co-marketing promotions, it would be brilliant to partner with Guy or Seth or Arianna or the IAB or 212 in NY.  My friends and friendsters (virtual friends) would be more likely to pay attention to my messaging if I were to co-create something with other public figures, associations or brands about which they care most.

In this list from UNBOUND Technologies, you can see who in my network are the most influential. If Joe Jaffe, Charlene Li or Mike Webb were to promote DishyMix, for example, their followers would be most likely to be interested in my work and they have the biggest reach.

If I give Unbound Technologies my professional contact database, they can also match it up with the premier social networks to give me an even better rank order of those people I know who are most connected in the social sphere. Even if I’m not directly connected to them now, I’d know who I should approach to friend to continue to widen my network more proactively.

Just replace Susan Bratton with your brand and think of the efficiencies and implications. What comes to your mind?

And here is this week’s DishyMix. Perfectly timed to talk about Social Influence Marketing with Shiv Singh of Razorfish who has been thinking about social network theory since grad school at the London  School of Economics & Political Science.

Shiv Singh, Razorfish on the Social Influence Marketing, the Portable Social Graph and Friendsters

Bernie interviewed me today for his terrific show, Find & Convert.

Bernie’s Show       Bernie’s Blog        Find and Convert in iTunes

He asked me a number of questions in advance of the interview and I thought I’d blog the answers here.

Who is Susan Bratton and what does she have her hands in now?

I’m a CEO, Publisher, Blogger, Podcaster, Speaker and Author.

DishyMix is my weekly podcast and companion blog. My coverages ranges from brain science to new gadgets to landing page conversion to the future of the social graph.

I’m the CEO and co-founder of Personal Life Media, an aspirational company and next-generation publisher focused on providing virtual, fully downloadable content experiences.

Our mantra is “frank talk and deep discussion for your personal life.”

We publish 40 podcasts, companion blogs and are launching 15 new information products I call “ebooks with benefits.”

Our first info products to market are, Talk Show Tips, Speak Up with Power and Influence, Masterful Techniques to Overcome Anxiety and Fear, Naturally Slender Quickstart and a 21 Day Lovemaking Program for Couples. We have another 10+ info products in production.

Top shows on Personal Life Media include:
DishyMix, Inside Out Weight Loss, Expanded Lovemaking, Buddhist Geeks, Living Dialogues, 3 Digital Photography Shows, The Diva Cast, The New Man, Just for Women, Philosopher’s Notes, Tantra & Kama Sutra and Sex, Love & Intimacy.

What is my high level view of social media marketing?

I view social media as being in three categories, Listening, Appvertising and Participation. Shiv Singh of Razorfish really helped me gel my concept of these buckets and his DishyMix interview is coming in June.

Listening is getting the most traction with Participation second and Appvertising third.

Listening: New companies like Unbound Technologies, a next generation Neilsen Buzz Metrics, is focused on opportunities around the social graph and social influence marketing. They create a list of the most influential individuals for any given brand and then provide an “affinity map” of the other most-influential people and brands related to that single, key influencer. This is fantastic for outreach, prioritization of influencers and joint promotions to important clustered audiences.

Taking behaviorial targeting to a new high with the inclusion of social graphing is Media6Degrees. They offer ad targeted based on social graphing. I also need an update on Lookery who is aggregating social media data across social networks to use for ad targeting. My interview with Scott Rafer of Lookery is here.

Appvertising is being well handled by ClearSpring, Gigya and RockYou! as well as SocialMedia.com and ContextOptional. Brands who create useful aps or sponsor useful aps for their target consumers are brilliant players at a high-level of sophistication in the social influence marketing sphere.

Participation is certainly evident in Facebook Pages. Here’s my DishyMix Fan Club where I give away all kinds of goodies to my listeners.  Also popular and smart are consumer generated content experiences like HP on YouTube described here in my interview with Daina Middleton and the darling of the moment, corporate Twitter accounts like this one.
What is the biggest difficulty in Social Media Marketing?

I believe in larger organizations, it is around internal ownership. Should social marketing be part of marketing, corp comm, where? In smaller organizations, I see the problem being one of overwhelming choice. Where do I start as a small business with limited resources?

Also, tracking and ROI still being figured out. Here is a great presentation on social media ROI.
http://www.slideshare.net/yongfook/social-media-roi

Lee Odden (the wonderful soul who connected Bernie and I in the first place through his superlative Top Rank Online Marketing Blog  and I talk about integration of web analytics and social media analytics in this interview I did with Lee at SXSW for the #Community Powered project. Emphasis on real time data. The data that you can collect through something like a social media monitoring tool, like Buzz Logic, Collective Intellect, Radian6, married with web analytics, like Google Analytics, Omniture, Web Trends.

Lee Odden and Susan Bratton on Web and Social Media Analytics

Podcasting? How did you get into it? What is the current state of podcasting and consulting your crystal ball on podcasting’s future.

Podcasting is still a nascent market.

The beauty of it is that anyone can create an audience of raving fans. (and in my ebook with benefits, called Talk Show Tips, I teach you how to empower your raving fans with the tools they need to help you grow your audience.)

If you are articulate and like to talk more than you like to write, audio may be better for you than blogging. And with transcripts, you can have the best of both worlds.

For video, the bar is very high on production quality. Make sure you are adequately resourced before pursuing.

Commercial podcasting is a very smart solution for brands who have deep knowledge to share with their customers and prospects.

The ADM (Association for Downloadable Media) is working on ad models, audience measurement and consumer attitudes toward sponsorships of podcasts.

It’s a greenfield opportunity for sponsors. Integrated social media programs are key. You must leverage the hosts’ social media influence.

There are two excellent video clips on Volomedia’s blog about Podcasting Metrics and Podcast Advertising and Sponsorship that Jeff Karnes and I just presented at the eMetrics Summit.

My presentation is at Slideshare.com about some of my best programs from TrustedID, Holosync’s MeditateFree.com, Better Sex Institute, Lensbaby, Accuquote and Audible.

http://www.volomedia.com/blog/2009/05/shows-on-the-go-with-jeff-karn.php

http://www.slideshare.net/SusanBratton/podcasting-metrics-and-sponsorship-ideas

Finally, Talk Show Tips: 72 Secret ‘Master Host’ Techniques will teach anyone how to land big name guests, prepare for their show, ask killer questions with my easy question-generator mini-course, create and manage a facile show flow, conduct professional in-interview techniques and learn a dozen ideas for using social media to radiate your show and help your fans promote your show for you.

What is your DishyMix podcast and blog business model?

I’m very fortunate to have sponsors who underwrite my show to reach my valuable, sophisticated audience of marketers, agency pros and digital media mavens. DishyMix is sponsored by Isobar US Carat, the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summits, adtech conferences, Trusted ID, Upstream Habitat and Audible.

Who are some of the most memorable guests on DishyMix?

I’ve created a blog post to wrap up my Top 10 Favorite DishyMix Guests.

DishyMix: Success Secrets from Famous Media and Internet Business Executives

And Coming Soon! Alvin Toffler, author of Future Shock on his newest tome, Revolutionary Wealth and Keith Ferrazzi, author of Never Eat Alone on his newest angle, Who’s Got Your Back?

Who are some of the most memorable guests on DishyMix?

Without a doubt, this list of amazing human beings are my all time favorite guests. The interviews are delightful, inspiring, educational and entertaining:

Sir Ken Robinson on The Element, Talent Assessment and Feeling Lucky

Dacher Keltner, Born to Be Good, Your Jen Ratio and Cro-Magnon CEO’s

Lynda Resnick on Predicting Winning Products, Outliers and Rubies and Cuties

David Szetela and the PPC 10 Cylinder Engine

Nolan Bushnell, 20 Start Ups Later, on Chemical Engines, Existentialism and “My Cave.”

WOZ Steve Wozniak, Apple Computer on Inventing as Art, Philanthropy and the Spirit of Creativity Part 1 of 2

Marcus Buckingham on The Truth About You, Career Intervention on Oprah and the Strength’s Revolution

John Zogby, Preeminent Pollster on The American Dream, Retail Politics and the Value Chasm

Alex Bogusky of Crispin, Porter + Bogusky on Culture Jamming, Hermie the Pygmy Elephant and Telling the Subservient Chicken to Go “Pluck” Himself

John Battelle on The Conversation Economy, Hairy World Issues and High School Musicals Part 1 of 2.

I’m headed out for a hike with a new playlist of podcasts from our network, Personal Life Media. I like sampling our various shows. I think this will last for a few hikes, a couple loads of laundry and a trip to SF and back! Such great content. Can’t wait to sink my teeth in.

Did you know there was stuff this good on our network?

 Click on the image above to go to Personal Life Media. Use the Search box to find any show.

BN 054: Lasik, Latisse and Lashes:  May Eye Care Shares the Facts    27:52    Teri Hausman    Beauty Now: The Intersection of Cosmetic Surgery, Longevity & Bio-Medical Innovation

BG 119: The Dharma Overground    18:47    Vince Horn and Ryan Oelke    Buddhist Geeks: Seriously Buddhist, Seriously Geeky

LD 091: Michael Beckwith  – The Evolutionary Impulse, Spiritual Liberation, and Our Changing World    1:05:06    Duncan Campbell    Living Dialogues: Thought-Leaders in Transforming Ourselves and Our Global Community with Duncan Campbell, Visionary Conversationalist, Living Dialogues.com

CLC 037: Practical NLP For Everyday Life with John Santangelo & Robert Harrison    42:33    Robert Harrison    Coaching the Life Coach: Business Coaching for Entrepreneurs & Executives by Famous Coaches

EL 087: Secrets of a Temple Priestess for Women (Part One) with Triambika    37:11    Dr. Patti Taylor    Expanded Lovemaking: Sex, Love, and Consciousness

JFW 077: Reid Mihalko: Hot Fun with Your Clothes ON!    1:01:01    Alissa Kriteman    Just For Women: Dating, Relationships and Sex with Alissa Kriteman

EL 084: Infuse Your Life with Enlightened Love  (Part Two) with Satyen Raja, Tantric Master and Founder of WarriorSage, Inc.    35:41    Dr. Patti Taylor    Expanded Lovemaking: Sex, Love, and Consciousness

IOWL 045: Making Food Your Former Best Friend    30:15    Renee Stephens    Inside Out Weight Loss: Aligning Mind Body and Spirit for Lasting Change

LD 073: Deborah Tannen – Shifting to Deeper Dialogue and Understanding Between the Sexes    38:41    Duncan Campbell    Living Dialogues: Thought-Leaders in Transforming Ourselves and Our Global Community with Duncan Campbell, Visionary Conversationalist, Living Dialogues.com

JFW 075: Satyen Raja – What is True Feminine Power?    48:58    Alissa Kriteman    Just For Women: Dating, Relationships and Sex with Alissa Kriteman

TNM 061: Sandor Gardos – Get Your Sex Life Off of Life Support    21:18    Tripp Lanier    The New Man: Beyond the Macho Jerk and the New Age Wimp

SLI 081: David Shade:  Becoming a Masterful Lover    41:08    Chip August    Sex, Love and Intimacy: Sex | Relationships | Sexy Monogamy

TSRA 035: Character Play; Being What You Are Not    38:12    Judy Silber    Taste of Sex – Reality Audio: A Reality Audio Show on Life in an Orgasm-Based Community

EL 092: Mastering Male Expanded Orgasm (Part Two) with Ian Ellington    30:05    Dr. Patti Taylor    Expanded Lovemaking: Sex, Love, and Consciousness

TNM 060: Decker Cunov & Bryan Bayer — AMP 2.0 Is Your Life on Autopilot?    18:27    Tripp Lanier    The New Man: Beyond the Macho Jerk and the New Age Wimp

LD 092: Robert Sitler guest – 1 of  7 On the Road of  “2012 NOW – Empowering the Transformation”    54:25    Duncan Campbell    Living Dialogues: Thought-Leaders in Transforming Ourselves and Our Global Community with Duncan Campbell, Visionary Conversationalist, Living Dialogues.com

IOWL 032: Enlightened Selfishness    32:55    Renee Stephens    Inside Out Weight Loss: Aligning Mind Body and Spirit for Lasting Change

BN 051: Love the Body You Have to Have the Body You Love with Weight Loss Success Coach Bronwyn Marmo    33:58    Teri Hausman    Beauty Now: The Intersection of Cosmetic Surgery, Longevity & Bio-Medical Innovation

EL 082: White-Hot Awakening to Trust (Part Two) with Saniel Bonder and Linda Groves-Bonder, Spiritual Awakeners, Teachers, and Creators of the Tantra of Trust    42:17    Dr. Patti Taylor    Expanded Lovemaking: Sex, Love, and Consciousness

FL 015: Learning Practical Steps to Decouple Fear From Our Moment-by-Moment Choice-Driven Evolution with Guy Finley    42:00    Adam Gilad    Fearless Lover: The Spiritual Foundations of Present, Boundless and Enduring Love

BN 052: The Food IS A Lie: The Truth Is Within with Weight Loss Success Coach Bronwyn Marmo    35:52    Teri Hausman    Beauty Now: The Intersection of Cosmetic Surgery, Longevity & Bio-Medical Innovation

At SXSW, I met my long-time idol, Bert Decker. Bert runs Decker Communications, a speaker’s training organization. Getting “Deckerized” changed by life. I used to be so afraid of public speaking, now it jazzes me like little else. I attribute much of my professional success to my ability to speak to large groups with confidence.

Bert has been on DishyMix and I have promoted his book, “You Have to Be Believed to Be Heard,” widely to my friends and compatriots.

At SXSW, Bert noted that panelists were monitoring Twitter to get audience feedback during presentations and panels. This behavior is not confined to the social media mecca that is SXSW. You’ll find panelists at ad:tech and other events doing the same thing.

I interviewed Bert about this phenomenon to get his opinions. Listen here to Bert Decker’s advice.

Susan Bratton & Bert Decker

And below is my complete DishyMix interview with him. If you are a public speaker, or want to be, this is a great interview, chock full of relevant and actionable advice.

Bert Decker on The First Brain, Transforming Your Personal Impact and The Decker Grid

Today’s DishyMix episode is with Daisy Whitney, host of the New Media Minute vidcast– syndicated on tvweek.com and abcnews.com. She is also the host of PixelCorp’s This Week in Media podcast and she’s a journalist for TV Week and frequent contributor to MediaPost. (she’s busy!) Daisy is about to launch an eBook on Fair Use too. If you’re interested, send her an email or DM her on Twitter.

Daisy Whitney specializes in covering Internet video, social networking, YouTube, iTunes and other forms of online and new media distribution of content.

In this episode, we talk about ways brands can use online video to promote their company in very powerful and clever ways. Hear stories from Embarq, Adiago Teas and other brands who are generating revenue with online video content. Gain insight into tagging for SEO. And hear the pros and cons of video syndication.

Daisy Whitney on the Many Uses of Online Video, Syndication and the 168 Hour Workweek

Dacher Keltner is a professor of psychology at UC Berkeley with a new book out called “Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life.” He’s been interviewed by the NY Times, TIME magazine and Scientific American recently. Here is a link to the SciAm article which covers, among many things, the idea of “devoting resources to others, rather than indulging a materialist desire, to bring about lasting well being.”

Dacher Keltner and His Holiness the Dalai Lama

In my DishyMix interview with Dacher, we focused a lot on how we can apply the insights he’s gained into pro-social human emotions like kindness, empathy and compassion to the business world.

It turns out the single most important thing you can do to create happiness and a meaningful life is what Dacher calls, “bringing others to completion.” If you are focused on helping bring out the best in others, it’s more satisfying than the continued focus on self.

The business world puts us in touch with a large number of people with whom we can work to “bring each other to completion.”  If you are a manager, you can help your team create their greatest personal/professional contributions. If you are public speaker, blogger, Twitterer or do other outbound communications that impact large groups, you are in the position to create an atmosphere to bring out the best in others and help move them forward in the gifts they bring to society.

Below are links to Dacher’s 2 part DishyMix interview, along with a link to his book, which I highly recommend.

Dacher’s research in positive human emotions and their impact on creating meaning in our lives is fascinating and his new book, “Born to be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life” is a must read of pure pleasure for anyone interested in creating a great, happy and meaningful life. That’s you, right?

Dacher Keltner, Born to Be Good, Your Jen Ratio and Cro-Magnon CEO’s

I hate recessions. They suck. The worst for me personally and professionally was the post-911 dot bomb. It was a nuclear winter here in Silicon Valley.

This time, as a collective industry we’re positing that digital media will even grow a bit amidst the macheting of traditional media budgets. Are your fingers are triple crossed (toes too)?

Here are three suggestions for getting out of the recession: be sad, get mad and be very, very afraid.

John Cloud’s recent article in TIME magazine “Feeling Our Way Out of the Recession: Are you angry or sad about the economy? Good. How our emotions can help bail us out,” says sadness stimulates consumer spending, our anger makes us want to change bad situations and fear motivates us to solve difficult issues.

Cloud interviews psychology professor Dacher Keltner, author of  “Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life,” an insightful probe into human emotions.

Dacher offers a lot of wisdom to marketers who like brain science and use psychology in their marketing strategy. I recently conducted a 2-part series interviewing Dacher for DishyMix.  You’ll get insight into the human condition along with advice about getting ahead at work. 

Listen Now!

Dacher Keltner, Born to Be Good, Your Jen Ratio and Cro-Magnon CEO’s Part 1 of 2

Dacher Keltner, Cro-Magnon CEO’s, Your Jen Ratio and Why We Are Born to Be Good Part 2 of 2

DishyMix Guest Rebecca Lieb (3/31 episode) is offering ALL DishyMix Listeners a free Bronze Econsultancy membership, PLUS $500 of additional benefits: download of an Econsultancy report or best practice guide, free press release posting and job ad on the site.

Rebecca recently left ClickZ as editor-in-chief and she’s launching Econsultancy, a UK analyst and digital media social network here in the US. Econsultancy is akin to eMarketer or iMedia, but their own unique flavor and the benefit of being started in the UK where they have a twist on ideas that in some cases are more clever than in the US, or at least offer a fresh perspective.

DishyMix listeners are exactly the target audience and she is letting me offer a Bronze membership with a $500 upgrade to my readers and listeners. W00t!

This costs you nothing and you can opt out anytime, but whoah(!), you should definitely take advantage of this. Just the opportunity to post a press release alone would be worth your time. Not to mention the free report you can download. And they have some neat templates for rfp’s and such.

What’s Econsultancy?
Econsultancy is an independent community-based publisher, focused on best practice digital marketing and e-commerce.

How do I become a Bronze member?
All you need to do is post your desire at the DishyMix Facebook Fan Club http://dishymixfan.com by 4/30/09, with your email address. Rebecca will send you a login that gets you access to the $500 upgrade to Bronze members.

Here are some of the most popular reports – you get 1 free:

• Managing Digital Channels Best Practice Guide
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Best Practice Guide
• Internet Statistics Compendium 2009
• CRM 2.0 Report
• Online PR Industry Benchmarking Report
• Digital Outsourcing Survey Report

Browse the full set of reports online at http://econsultancy.com

Just back from TED. Still stuffing my brain matter back into my head from a week of mind expansion.

The TED bookstore was a treasure trove of great content. Here are six authors whose subject matter was featured in the TED bookstore. I’ve interviewed Ori Brafman, author of The Starfish and the Spider and SWAY; Dacher Keltner, author of Born to be Good; Charlene Li of Groundswell; (coming soon) Andy Sernovitz of Word of Mouth Marketing; Joe Pine of Authenticity and Marcus Buckingham of The Truth About You.

Why read when you can listen?

Ori Brafman, Author of “Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior” on Purchase Psychology, Interview Insights and Employee Incentives

Dacher Keltner, Born to Be Good, Your Jen Ratio and Cro-Magnon CEO’s

Charlene Li, author of Groundswell on Emotional Motivations and the 5 Objectives of Social Media

Author Joe Pine on the Principles of Influential Authenticity, The Experience Economy and Phoniness Generating Machines

Marcus Buckingham on The Truth About You, Career Intervention on Oprah and the Strength’s Revolution