That’s really two things, but the first is really asking the second, so I’m calling it one.

If you read my last post, I explained six things social media tools can definitely do for you.

On the surface even those can play as somewhat vague, and I know this. Let me try and give you an example.

Just this week a current client had a very cool thing happen which I had nothing to do with – it’s related to #5 – word-of-mouth.

I’m not going to name names until I get permission, but let’s pretend for the sake of the discussion my client is a chiropractor.

Here’s what happened.

1) A man (who found my client’s practice on Twitter) became a patient.

2) The doctor laid out a two-year treatment program.

3) The patient decided to start an entire website and video series to track his progress. He’s also Tweeting about my client and what a great doctor he is.

That’s two years of free advertising and endorsement from a patient who’s genuinely touting his skills and abilities.

How did this happen?

Their patient just did it, all on their own. You really can’t plan for that, but now that it’s there, we can certainly work between the three of us to maximize on its existence.

Rolling it back to the real impetus to all of this is that my client was in the space and doing it right. We reached out, we engaged, the patient came into the office, and things went from there.

That they’re so creative was a stroke of luck, but if the doctor wasn’t on Twitter, they never would’ve come into the office at all.

The part that I like is nobody has to know I did a thing. My client comes out looking great, the patient feels great, and I just sit over here and nod my head and say, “yep”.

1) Presence – Simply being in the space can be of value from a search standpoint.

2) Social SEO – I’ve written about this here extensively.

3) Brand Awareness – Monitoring the social graph for people talking about your company or industry.

4) Lead Generation – Finding people actively searching for the product or service you offer.

5) Word-Of-Mouth – Encouraging your current customers to spread the word or leave reviews.

6) Direct Marketing – Linking or posting special offers and incentives.

There are two ways I tackle these with clients – what you might call the ACTIVE and PASSIVE approaches.

The Active hits all of the above, the Passive hits some – usually 1-4, with a touch of 6.

Obviously #5 is the one that’s left out, the reason being that one really needs to go “all in” with social to make it effective. That generally means bringing it in-house to make it truly Active.

It needs to become a full part of the marketing and customer service protocols. In my experience, a lot of businesses just aren’t ready for that kind of commitment.

That’s exactly what it is, also – a commitment. Once things are up and running it’s a more smoothly operating machine, but there’s a period wherein someone has to say WE’RE DOING THIS, making it a true priority to learn the hows and whys of social networking.

An outside contractor or consultant can (and often should) guide the business through that process, but to get all pseudo-deep on you, the desire to do it has to come from within.

The Passive approach still has massive benefits, one of which is greasing the wheels to go Active when the time is right. My best Passive program is the Social Page One.

Not everyone can use them right.

This is the same variation on the post I’ve been writing for the past month or two, but it’s all I have to add that’s not said better elsewhere.

(For the best in social media news and updates, go to Mashable. Lots of people in this biz like to have base their sites around rehashing their content – I see no point.)

In fact, via Mashable is this article about Old Spice v Cisco.

Short version is that Old Spice ran an extremely successful social media campaign recently. Cisco basically did the same program the next week, using the same tools. One blew up, the other one was ignored.

There are lots of things to read into this and analyze, but the one I want to emphasize is that the tools don’t matter. Creativity and the human element do.

One of the most successful social media campaigns out there for driving hard numbers and business is run by a couple guys with a taco truck in Los Angeles. At the same time, Wendy’s can’t seem to make it work.

It’s the talent and commitment to really doing it right, not the tools.

For example, I posted this fake-artsy picture of a Balance Bar wrapper on my Twitter this morning.

I did it because I like the product and it was just a fun way to throw away 30 seconds of my life.

What did Balance themselves have to do with this? Nothing – I couldn’t even find a presence for them on Twitter.

That fine, although they have no idea I just broadcast a free advertisement to 7500 people, and perhaps their extended network should they like the pic and pass it on.

Imagine if they decided to harness that power? What if they entered me in a contest for doing that? Ten free cases or something – I’d post every time I ate one.

What if they simply added a message on their wrapper telling people to Tweet pics of it?

People do this stuff – the tech allows everyone to throw away those 30 seconds, and people do it willfully for brands they love.

This is by no means limited to big brands, either.

Let’s say you’re an independent pizza place – by that, I mean you’re not Pizza Hut or one of the other big franchises.

Put a message on your box for people to Tweet a pic of their empty when they’re done – what’s the worst that could happen?

A bunch of people tell all their friends they just ate your product.

If you do that baseline thing – without even adding any creative element to it or even participating yourself (i.e. like Balance Bars) – that’s actually the worst thing that could happen.

Last time I checked that’s a good thing, and it cost you nothing other than adding an extra sentence to your pizza box design.

I keep saying it, but this stuff is not hard – you just need to put it in place.

This is as much the semi-maturing of the space as anything I’ve done, but it’s also because (he said humbly) I’m good, I know what I’m talking about, and I don’t run people around in circles with buzzwords and hyperbole.

I’ve had numerous calls and meetings the past couple weeks with people who have had a round of service from some of these people who make empty promises of “x number of followers on Twitter in y number of weeks” and such things.

Of course, at some point, those “x number of followers” better transfer into “y number of leads” or “z number of sales”, and people are starting to make that revelation as they’re able educate themselves more on social media usage for business.

One thing I always tell potential clients is “anyone can do social networking”.

It’s true, also – there are thousands of people who can set up a Twitter account, build you a Facebook page, and make it look like your business is “doing social networking”.

In my work, I use a different phrase, and that’s “using social networking”. Subtle difference, but important.

Ask your potential social networking consultant/strategist/whatever some pointed questions to see where they fall. Next time they promise you “x number of followers on Twitter”, follow up by asking:

How valuable are those followers?
What do you plan to do with those followers?
Are those followers just a bunch of useless bot accounts?

If their answers run you around in circles, run.

Also – and this is just my opinion – if their company blog has generic business pictures, that’s another reason to run.

Personally, I like to make fake pretentious art pictures like the cool blurry portrait I just took of a water jug and my iPod headphones in widescreen format.

Really, it’s been around in some form for awhile, but with Google moving into the space officially this fall, I think the time is upon us. Give this a watch:

As far as your business is concerned – let’s say you have an in-ground pool installation company.

Person A is watching a show on TLC about pool installations, and while they’re watching, they decide to search for companies in their area who do it.

More than likely, they also hit up their social network to Tweet out that they’re watching this show and thinking of exploring the idea. How nice would it be if your company was right there to show them what you can do?

This scenario can and does happen all the time right now, but remove the “pick up the laptop” step, and it’s going to happen all the more often.

The reason is simple – everyone and their brother/sister is a “social media consultant” these days, and I don’t think being another “guy who Twitters about Twitter” is of particular value.

It’s a lot of hot air to me and the space is a hotbed of talkers and scammers.

I’d reference the person I talked about in this post as part of that problem, as well as someone who recently started following me on Twitter.

They’ll remain unidentified here, but this was in their profile description.

I create businesses, products, and client solutions for you via social media strategies.

Here’s my reaction to that statement – what in the world are you talking about?

Could you be more generic and vague? (While trying to seem impressive and powerful?)

I don’t want to sit here and complain, but a lot of my time recently has been spent defending my approach to potential clients who want me to promise them the world.

Often I find myself saying things like, “Well, starting a Twitter account and selling 100,000 units by next week isn’t going to happen, but let’s look at some options for what might be possible.”

When “Social Media Consultant X” offers up the mythical “100,000 Unit Promise” and a bunch of social media mumbo-jumbo about having presences on 15 networks and blah, blah, blah…it sounds impressive.

My point is that what’s so exciting about social tools – that there are very few 100% proven strategical paths to success – is also a hitch in the culture of it.

When nobody knows anything, it’s easy to say anything and make it sound good.

(I found out about it via TechCrunch.)

It basically will scour its own member database and those of various social networks to create a profile of whoever has sent you a particular email.

Very useful, especially in the case of people you don’t know who are reaching out.

The most interesting part of this was that I went ahead and sent myself an email to see what it would bring up, and my profile was screwed up.

(I’d used a different email address for my Twitter account than my other social accounts, so my profile was missing a big piece of my online presence.)

I wouldn’t be surprised if Google soon creates their own version of this or just buys Rapportive itself, but whatever happens it just reinforces how essential it is to make sure all your your personal online brand/identity is well established.

You never know who’s checking you out and how easily it’s being done.

(That pic at the top shows Rapportive in action – that’s someone I’m putting together a movie pitch with. She’d done a good job getting her ID in order.

Click it to enlarge – the blurred parts also show her job title, employer, etc.)

I handed my life over to them, running all my communications, scheduling, documents, billing, etc through their services.

(I also offer you the option to let me help you do this for you or your business.)

This has worked wonders for my efficiency and organization, and the next logical step was going mobile with it.

Google has had their own mobile operating system (Android) for some time, and they’ve now started releasing their own branded phones this year, the first of which was the Google Nexus One.

The time for me to switch over without having to pay full price for a new phone finally came and I’ve been on my Nexus One for about a month now.

After experimenting with different apps and syncing everything correctly, this thing is getting really close to changing the way I do everything.

I’ve realized that if I absolutely had to, I could run my entire business – without horrific amounts of difficulty – from my phone. It’s not the ideal due to the lack of screen real estate (and a screen-size keyboard), but it’s totally possible.

Client contacts are linked to their docs, are linked to my task lists, are linked to their sites, are linked to their location, are linked to everything else I know about and do for them.

I can call, go visit, pull up their info, check their social accounts, write blog posts, etc. It’s not the ideal, but it’s possible.

The only thing I can’t do in a pinch no matter what is heavy photo or video editing. Anything else – I’m set. (Makes the iPad look attractive from this standpoint.)

The key is that everything I do on here syncs up automatically with my Google account, so when I get on my computer, everything I did while mobile is already accounted for.

I know this is a little scattered, but I’m just now starting to see what this thing can do and it’s amazing. Plus, rearranging and organizing my App icons is my new favorite hobby.

People are like, “Hey, you’re smart and know what you’re doing – why isn’t your website all tricked out with cool graphics and stuff?”

The answer is simple, and comes in two parts.

1) Mobile. Smartphones have small screens and slower connections. Stuff needs to load fast and the content needs to be easy to find.

2) Google. I’m pretty sure they know what they’re doing in the online space, so I suppose I’ve followed their lead.

Speaking of Google, they’ve just this morning overhauled their Place/Maps Pages in a big way, which is something I’ve been hoping for. Worth reading up on.

(Yes, if you’re a current client, I’ll be seeing what we can and should do for you here.)