Understanding the concept of social graphs will not only enhance your proficiency with social media marketing today, it will also help you foresee emerging trends. This will significantly help you be fully prepared when new web technologies are launched.

The term social graph was first used a few years ago by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, specifically in reference to the Facebook platform. Your social graph is a digital map of your personal identity, your primary Facebook friends and everything you share with them.

That definition has since been expanded to include other platforms, such as Twitter, Flickr and even Google. So, to be clear, you have many overlapping social graphs. This social data is of great interest to businesses that are trying to connect with you, and should be of equal interest to you for reaching your future customers.

The social graph is a contextual matrix of relationships.

Facebook and the Open Graph

When Facebook launched sweeping changes to their platform on April 21, 2010, social graphs were suddenly thrust into the spotlight. That’s when Mark Zuckerberg coined a new term—Open Graph.

The objective of Facebook Open Graph is to integrate all of your social graphs—on Facebook, of course. This is accomplished through the Facebook API, which is a digital handshake that connects your Facebook identity, connections and content with Facebook pages and outside websites and blogs. You probably know it best in its most popular form as the Facebook Like button.

Facebook Like creates communities of like-minded people.

When you Like a Facebook page or site that has embedded the Facebook Like feature, you’re instantly connected with everyone else who has Liked that site. You have effectively joined a new community, and now you have the benefit of many new associations.

Unfortunately, the positive side of connecting businesses with consumers in this way was overshadowed by the privacy uproar associated with Open Graph. That has since been remedied by allowing you to control what you share, if anything, with your new community.

If you can integrate millions of social graphs that are rich with personal data, you have a Frankenstein’s monster of a database that is infused with social context, and therefore, human-like qualities.

Similar to Frankenstein, the Open Graph is not really human, but it has the possibility to come awfully close as more social data is stitched together. The power of a database that truly emulates human behavior is undeniable. Whatever happens in the future, one thing we’re sure of is that day in April was a game-changer for social marketers.

How Social Graphs Tell a Story

Searchable content has always been the foundation of the Internet. Bill Gates is credited with stating that “content is king”—and at the time he said that (he wrote it first), he was right. However, that was before social networking changed the game of search to what it is today; one where context is king.

As your messaging or content on the social web is shared, it gathers context and builds nodal relationships that tell a story. By understanding this, you can more effectively enhance your social graph by creating useful content that favorably represents who you are and what you do best with your expertise.

Context—Social networks are all about context. Whom you associate with tells a great deal about you. Context not only tells us who you are, but by associations and comparisons, who you are not. You may be very similar to colleagues you associate with, but there is enough data to discern a difference. That association may be what helps you to be discovered, but it is the distinction that will get you hired.

Nodes—When you map out your social connections, you’re essentially connecting the dots. Think of these dots as nodes on a complex matrix. The more nodes there are on your social graph, the more readily you can be defined, and therefore located. Nodes are landmarks or junction points on a map that helps users navigate the unknown and find exactly what they need or want, which ideally is your business.

Sharing—Sharing on the social web is what creates nodes. If you share content that someone finds useful, they’re likely to share it with their community, thereby connecting you with their friends—which creates even more nodes.

Why Social Search Is a Game-Changer

When Facebook introduced its Open Graph, Mark Zuckerberg made the statement that if we can take the social graphs of a multitude of social networking or sharing sites, we could “create a web that’s smarter, more social, more personalized, and more semantically aware.”

A semantically aware web takes advantage of relationships and associations. You’ve already experienced how social semantic search works if you’ve made multiple purchases on Amazon. They understand your preferences and they cross-link them with the preferences of people whose social graphs are similar to yours.

As new technologies are integrated with this growing body of social data, you can expect search capabilities to rise to breathtaking levels, giving more accurate, more personal and timelier search results.

Here are some steps you can take to create a representative social graph:

Create Social Objects—In addition to relationships with people, you also have relationships with objects that further define your social graph. Social objects are anything that is searchable on the web. This obviously includes people, but also images, videos and music clips. All of these objects interact to tell a story.

Fill in the Gaps—As social graphs are merged, they become mutually more descriptive and complete. Yet for most of us, our social graphs are largely empty space. This is why it’s important to be actively engaged and share on the social networks, both on a personal and professional level. When you do this, you’re managing your destiny by building your social graph, which is always best accomplished with your direct involvement.

Consider Location and Time—Social graphs are digital maps that lead us to places. As social graphing is accomplished more frequently in real time and location, better decisions become possible. While there may a number of businesses like yours that are suited to someone doing a search, the person is more likely to choose you if you’ve recently engaged in conversations that keep your social graph fresh and relevant.

What This Means for Business

At the recent Web 2.0 Summit, Mark Zuckerberg said, “Over the next five years every industry will have to redesign itself around social.” This is a statement that I believe holds a great deal of merit. Businesses need to realize that social is not just changing how you should market, but even how you’ll be doing business in the future if you expect to prosper.

It remains to be seen whether Open Graph will become a reality. While the technology is available, there are political and economic boundaries that prevent it from readily happening. Nevertheless, what’s trending is typically going to happen at some point in the future.

Here are some likely possibilities:

The Future Web Is More Personal

Let’s face it, people are interested in people. Human interactions of all kinds add context that illuminates, clarifies and cuts through the clutter. There is no question that semantic search will transform our roles as both consumers and business professionals.

The Future Web Is More Intelligent

Every piece of data that gets added to every social graph makes the entire system more intelligent. The more the system knows, the more discerning it will be. It becomes a better decision-maker. What is Microsoft’s Bing, which also happens to power Facebook search? A decision engine.

The Future Web Is More Open

Social graphs overlap and extend across the globe.

Imagine a web that has perfect access to information—a social web that is a digital copy of our physical world.

While this may sound like science fiction to some, could you have imagined 10 years ago that you would someday be carrying a handheld device that would help you find a business, navigate your travel there in real time, let you know which of your friends has recently visited and what recommendations they left for you?

What do you think? Is science fiction now becoming science? What challenges and possibilities do you see? Let us know your comments in the box below.

All images from Shutterstock

Social media is no more a one-off playground for brands than television advertising, direct mail campaigns or customer relationship management programs. It’s serious business and should be treated as such.

The following question then becomes relevant: “How do we think about social media strategically?” The good news is that it’s not that difficult, provided your planning team has an understanding of two things and a healthy grounding in another.

The two essential knowledge bases you’ll need are an understanding of the social media tools available (from blogs and social networks to wikis and beyond) and the philosophical foundations to be successful in social media (think share, not sell). The healthy grounding should be in the 5 essential pillars of a social media campaign.

This is the point in the post where most social media marketers would throw out a standard list of five things to guide your social media thinking that generally parallels the marketing mix variables you’re used to. Product, place, price, promotions and public relations can be a starting point. You can even define your product, your target audience, your competition, environmental factors and your metrics or measures of success.

But to take full advantage of your social media efforts and drive buzz, business or both, read on.

Social Media Examiner’s
5 Essential Pillars of a Social Media Campaign:

1. Connectivity

If you aren’t connected to your consumers, and conversely they are not connected to you, then social media success is impossible.

Whether you have customer service chat available on your website, a support forum, commenting enabled on the company blog or even a company presence on Twitter, you must have a connecting point for your customers to find you. Social media is about conversations. Conversations cannot be had if you’re nowhere to be found.

Being connected doesn’t just mean you throw up a form on your website, though. It means you have a person or persons monitoring conversations about your brand online, answering questions, even if the questions weren’t posed directly to them. Connectivity means not just being plugged in, but also being turned on.

2. Generosity

If you’ve read anything about social media on- or offline, you’ve probably heard the phrase, “Give to Get.”

Online social media is an almost identical environment to a social gathering offline. People gravitate to individuals, groups or conversations they feel they can get the most out of. By providing something of value to your customers, or potential customers, in your online activities, you earn trust. The more trust you earn, the more influence you’ll have.

Generosity requires a cultural shift, however, in the way most marketers think. You cannot be generous to others if your top priority is selling more stuff. That is selfish.

You have to approach the online consumer with the attitude that you have something of value to provide, free of charge. In exchange for that, you hope to build and strengthen relationships with others. Those relationships, over time, will equal a much higher return on investment than one-off, one-time customers.

3. Honesty

Have you ever heard a politician or professional athlete respond to a reporter’s question with, “No comment?” It appears as if they’re hiding something, doesn’t it?

If what you’re doing in social media is building relationships, you can’t build them without honesty.

If your product is made with a lesser material than your competitor’s, don’t hide it. Either get better material or find a positive reason it’s made that way (e.g., it’s cheaper, thus saves consumers money).

If the company makes a mistake and has to recall a product, simply say, “We made a mistake. We’re very sorry.” As long as you mean it, people will believe you.

And you don’t have to suddenly treat confidential company information with open records policies, either. The public is a lot smarter than you think. When sensitive information is in question, simply say, “I’m sorry. That’s information we don’t talk about outside the company for competitive reasons.” That answer is honest. “No comment?” Not so much.

4. Personality

If you had to boil successful communication in the social media realm down to an essence, it would be to be human. Consumers flocked to social networking sites and blogs to get away from one-way blasted marketing messages hurled at them all day.

By visiting only the websites they want to visit and finding like-minded consumers to share recommendations and conversations with in social networks, the public has created a new environment for communications—one that requires you, even as a company, to be human.

To put it simply, people want to talk to another human being when making buying decisions, discussing products and services and discovering new products and services. You cannot have a conversation with a logo, a building or a company. You have conversations with human beings.

5. Imagination

Social media is much like a social event. But after a while, social events or conversations with the same groups of people become stale and predictable. The conversations that last are those where at least one person always has something new to say, a never-ending stream of stories or jokes.

Approach your planning as if you’re the person who will keep the life in the party. Develop an editorial calendar for website or blog content and brainstorm a contest, promotion or game for customers and fans to engage with on a monthly or quarterly basis. Remember that you’re building relationships, but, like dating or even marriage, you have to be creative to keep the relationship fresh and invigorating.

Your Turn

If you think through the 5 Essential Pillars of a Social Media Campaign, you’ll at least be well on your way to success in social media. But these are meant to be guidelines, not rules. What other topics or areas have you found equally as important to social media success? How are you using your imagination to keep campaigns fresh and alive? Inspire your fellow readers with a comment.

“Photo Credit: ‘Supreme Court Pillars‘ (CC) by David Paul Ohmer on Flickr.”