A German man with a typewriter is responsible for the entire existence of URL shorteners. Here’s how:

25 years ago, Friedhelm Hillebrand sat at typewriter in his home in Germany and typed out sentences and questions. Eventually he realized that most lines ended up with less than 160 characters. He decided that this number, 160, was “sufficient” for text based communication.

Hillebrand also happened to be the chairman of the nonvoice services committee in the Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM). He pushed for, and got, the 160 character limit that we still use for SMS messaging on phones today. Unintentional Consequences

Moving forward a few years, a little site called Twitter decided that it was going to set it’s status update message size at 140 characters. Why? Because they wanted users to be able to see status updates on their cell phones via text message. Therefore to get the users name plus their message, they had to cut the length.

As Twitter grew, it’s purpose, focus, and usage changed to the point where sharing links became a major element of the service. However, many URLs were too long to include in tweets with any type of context.

Enter services like bit.ly or tinyurl which exist to substitute long URLs with short ones, making it possible to include in tweets.

And there you go. German man with typewriter to SMS character limit to Twitter character limit to bit.ly.

Here’s the original article from 5/09 in the L.A. Times with more background, etc.

One thing this got me thinking about was the fact that to be “social” doesn’t necessarily mean you have to tweet or have a Facebook page. If you offer services or technology that works with, augments, or improves inherent social behavior, you can have more of an effect than any number of tweeted links.

Much of this unnecessary patter is due to the unrealistic expectations brands (and the agencies and consultants that enable them) have for social media. Where, in a misguided quest for easily understood metrics, success has come to mean x number of Twitter followers or y number of Facebook Fan Page updates each month

This is something that drives me nuts. Social media marketing is, at its core, marketing. It’s goal is to increase sales, sign-ups, usage, etc.. Move the needle. As Alan mentions, these metrics are easy, and that’s what makes them benchmarkable, but in the end, do they really matter?

Later in the post, he’ mentions a few things companies undertaking social efforts need to understand. My favorite:

You need to find one particular area of social media you feel comfortable with – which might just be a blog or a YouTube channel — and concentrate on being really, really good at that, especially if it makes sense in terms of who your customers are.

So many people spread themselves too thin. Don’t waste 5 hours a week developing an executing your Twitter strategy if you only have a few customers there. It doesn’t matter if you’re getting “You Need to Be On Twitter!” in every newsletter and journal you get. If it’s not right, don’t waste time.

Read Alan’s entire post here.

Just about all media is social media.

That being said (and minds being blown), not all media is as intrinsically social as one another. I’ve broken down most types into 4 categories. Let’s take a look!

Socially Passive Media
This is the traditional stuff. The mass media that everyone’s used to. Most TV shows, movies, books, newspapers, and magazines are one-way streets, but that doesn’t mean they exist in complete isolation. They have to pay attention to the way people “vote” with their money and time. If a magazine is poorly written or becomes irrelevant, people are going to stop buying and reading it. And magazines don’t last long if no one reads them. Same goes for TV shows, if that new over-hyped sitcom tanks, then it gets pulled off the air.

This type of media isn’t directly socially influenced. But at the very bottom line, if people aren’t watching,reading, listening, or (most importantly) buying, it’s not going to last long.

Socially Influenced Media
Now here is an interesting mix. Socially Influenced Media is usually a traditional media form that has been tweaked in some way to “give the power to the people”. Think letters to the editor, American Idol, Dancing With The Stars, or Jim Cramer’s Mad Money. At this level, the actual outcome is determined by the audience at large (as opposed to the above in which just the media being presented is determined)

This is a big step, because it represents the swing of control from “them” to “us”. We still don’t have any say as to what kind of competition it is, or whether we talk about stocks or bonds. What we do have, however, is the ability to make a noticeable difference.

Socially Highlighted Media
Ahhhh, Feels good to be back in the comfort zone, doesn’t it? Socially Highlighted Media is the beginning of what most of us think about when we think “social media”. What makes the distinction here, is that “we” decide what gets noticed, featured, or promoted. We put stories on the front page of Digg, Mixx, and reddit. We submit sites to StumbleUpon or delicious. If we decide stories about the government in Mozambique are important, then they are.

Socially Created Media
This is the rest of what encompasses the traditional view of “social media”. Blogs, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Facebook profiles, Posterous, Tumblr, etc. all fit into this category. The focus here is that as the type of media is created, it’s intrinsically social. Blogs, pictures, and profiles all live on the web. They’re “born social”.

The Socially Created Media category is one that’s growing and changing incredibly fast. It’s creating new categories i.e. Microblogging (remember a time before Twitter?) and starting to absorb elements from other types of media. Webisodes, and even entire shows, now live on the web. This category has the most potential, and it’ll be interesting to see how this continues to evolve.

We are, absolutely, our own worst enemy.

Yes, us. Not the measurement issue. Not the lack of client knowledge. Not the ever-shifting landscape or the fight to be taken seriously. Us.

It happens every time we agree to ghost write a blog and pretend that we’re someone who really cares about a business. Every time we blindly recommend the full development of a blog when we’re pretty sure the client won’t be able to follow through with it anyway. We promote Twitter and Facebook fan pages when we know (and yes we do really know) that follower and fan count don’t mean that much. But hey, they’re a number we can bring back to the client!

Maybe all of this is just a reaction to the fact that “social media” as a marketing practice is coming of age in an economic downturn, and people are going to do whatever they can just to get the business. I’m not trying to take the moral high ground here either, I completely understand that situation, but where does it end? We can we stand up to the client and tell them we won’t spam tweets, or when will we stop pitching borderline strategy just so clients can say they’re “doing the social media stuff”?

Needless to say, there are always going to be smart people out there, people who push the thinking, have the client’s best interests at heart, and generally just fight the good fight. In my opinion, it seems like we could use a few more of those kind of people.

Good For: Long-form content. Deep, detailed, insightful writing. Extensive discussion.

Not So Good For: Spur of the moment and mobile posting.

Verdict: A blog is at it’s best when it can showcase a clear, well defined thought, however it’s also the most versatile of the tools and can be used for just about anything.

Tumblr/Posterus

Good For: Shorter posts. Photo blogging. Spontaneous and mobile content.

Not So Good For: Robust feature sets. Design possibilities (Posterus).

Verdict: Great for shorter, more spontaneous posting with good “on-the-go” options. Think of it as Blogging-Minor

Twitter

Good For: Real-time interaction. Quick thoughts. Content sharing (links, photos, videos, etc.). Making connections.

Not So Good For: Well thought out posts/content. Comprehensive arguments.

Verdict: Great for interaction, not so much for content.

Video Platforms (Youtube, Vimeo, etc.)

Good For: Dynamic content. Showcasing personality. Conveying energy and spreading a message.

Not So Good For: Discussion. Scannable content.

Verdict: The most dynamic of all mediums, but limited in that it’s not scannable or as easily digestible as others.

Social Networks (Facebook, Ning, etc.)

Good For: Making connections. Maintaining a community. Organizing an effort.

Not So Good For: Posting content. Thought leadership.

Verdict: The best at connecting and organizing, but limited in a content publishing dimension.

This seems to be the tough one for a lot of people. I know there’s a push for marketers and business owners to jump into social, but it’s not always the best idea. Just because “everyone else is doing it” (which they really aren’t) doesn’t mean you should commit time or resources to a social effort. You need to not only understand where your customers are, but where they can/want to interact with you. Sure it makes sense for Mr. Monty and Ford to get going, but your local concrete stamping business? I’m not so sure.

2) Establish your goals.

I agree with the typical rallying cry of “Strategy before Tactics”, but more importantly I believe in Goals before Strategy. Right up front you have to decide what you are aiming for with your initiative. Are you just going for page views? Do you want customer interaction and response? Are you trying to build a viable online community? All these things require different approaches and this needs to be hashed out in advance of the next step.

3) Think strategy first.

“Let’s use Twitter!” is not strategy. This ends up being a hurdle because while many people are familiar with the tools, not many people are used to putting a plan together to use them in a cohesive way. You need to look at your goals and then determine the best way to use the tools available to reach those goals.

4) Determine your tactical approach.

This is the “boots on the ground” part of the effort. In this step you’re going to be determining the practical elements of executing your plan. Things you’ll tackle here are likely going to be similar to “Who is going to handle the Twitter account?”, “How many blog posts per month do we want?”, and “Who in our industry do we need to reach out to?”. Again, all the tactics are based on your overall strategy, which is based on your goals. While it’s easy to say that goals and strategy are the most important, great strategy without execution won’t get you very far.

So if you’re reading this blog, I’m pretty damn positive that you noticed that Twitter and Facebook went down the other day. Funny how many forget (or just don’t know) that something just like the “Social Media Apocalypse” of 8/09 used to happen literally every week on Twitter.

And while the outage was relatively minor, there were ripple effects that went beyond people’s inability to tweet about their breakfast or to RT some social media link-bait.

Take a look at CPB’s new site. What happens when Twitter goes down? Is it really acceptable to lose 1/3 of your website’s content? And they’re not the only agency/company to rely on a 3rd party feed. I think that pulling in content from other places is great, but now you’ve got to worry about the stability of other sites.

Not that any of this is wrong. Just another thing to think about.

Normally when you hear people giving advice or guidance about social media, a big point is “follow through” with all things you do. Now this is certainly good advice when it comes to starting a blog, or getting a social presence rolling, but I’m don’t believe that social efforts have to go on forever.

Plan ahead. Set Goals. Set a time frame. Let it end.

And honestly, what’s so bad with having an effort end? As long as you don’t quit everything entirely (which would be disappointing because, c’mon..we love you) and you have a follow-up planned, don’t feel like ending an effort is wrong.

Because the alternative is almost certainly worse. The biggest offenders (in my mind) are media releases. How many books have we seen get their own blog, put up posts on a regular schedule, promote the hell of out it, and then slowly let it wither and die? To me, there’s a certain sense of neglect in that. For example take the blog for Made to Stick, which is one of my absolute favorite communication books, and look at the posting schedule. Now I know the brothers Heath are busy men, and right now the blog for a book that’s a couple years old is probably not very high up on their lists. All the more reason to end it. Give us some closure and let us move on.

Look at what Geoff Livingston did with his book Now Is Gone. In declaring the end, he helps the audience (and himself) move on, ready to tackle whatever is next. Or take Blue Ion’s 301 Blog, which chronicles their move to a permanent office location. When they move it, that’s all she wrote.

Don’t hold on to your efforts too long. Plus they only go to a nice farm owned by Mashable out in the country.

Not a great plan.

If you have a goal or strategy behind your social media initiatives, it can go that much further. Frank (@comcastcares) at Comcast didn’t set out to chat it up with Comcast subscribers (although it would have been better than staying silent), he went out to change minds about Comcast and their customer service by helping out. Gary Vaynerchuck started his empire around educating people with the goal of (eventually) selling wine. The Best Dressed Man In Social Media aka Scott Monty certainly has a game plan with the Fiesta Movement (it’s not a campaign people, its a movement!) at Ford. And these are just a few examples.

Bottom line: Interaction = good. Interaction with purpose = great.