I’ve recently fielded several questions stemming from the article on social networking in the New York Times that came out last week. One in particular caught my attention and I’d like to address it a bit more comprehensively.

The question was from a guy about to launch a Bed & Breakfast in Colorado and was interested in knowing whether social media could be an appropriate marketing tactic to target “people interested in traveling for pleasure and honeymooners.”

There are probably other tactics that might be more effective at driving new customer acquisition at the outset. For instance, there is probably a traditional public relations strategy somewhere in your plan that would look to target domestic travel channels and channels for newlyweds and honeymooners. I would certainly think social media could play an important role in your public relations strategy because I’m sure there are loads of non-traditional media influencers who are worth targeting. In fact, I’d even consider doing an event where you get together a list of key influencers in your space and simply comp. them a weekend. There may be also a SEM strategy that drives customer acquisition in spaces like “bed & breakfast” & Colorado. What’s more, social media can probably be used as a tactic to facilitate this broader SEM strategy.

However, the role I think social media can play outside of PR and SEM for your business is to facilitate engagement between you and the individuals in your personal social network.

First, let me clarify what I mean by ’social network’ because I’m not referring to MySpace or Facebook. The first step is to detach the concept of ’social networking’ from any of the various forms it takes. These are tools that facilitate interactions in real breathing, living social networks however they are not themselves social networks. They can facilitate strong network connections and create weak ones but they aren’t places where true, meaningful interactions take place (in general) and solid network connections grow.

Your social network is the Web of connections you compile over time through meaningful interactions with others. In the case of your business, it will be the customers you acquire and the influencers you come into contact with as the result of your broader marketing efforts.

Your social media strategy should be aimed at facilitating engagement with these people.

Now the nature of who these people are and where they interact is key because knowing this will allow you to match your tools to your network. For us (PRWeb), Twitter is an important tool because the adoption rate of Twitter is high with many of our customers. Through our Twitter account we are able to send out quick, informal announcements to a large segment of our social network. However, my instinct would be that Twitter might not be the best tool to facilitate network connections among travelers and Honeymooners who have visited your B&B in Colorado (at this point in time).

I’ll end with what I believe to be a good example of a brick and mortar that has a social media approach that works well with its business, Barrel Oak Winery in Delaplane, Virginia. Their primary channels used to communicate with their social network include their Web site and e-mail list.

Now, the way social media has played into their overall marketing efforts has been as a component of their PR strategy. Early on, they reached out to various influencers who cover what’s going on in the DC-area (which is how I came into contact with them originally) and invited them to visit their winery. They created strong relationships with these influencers and have gained considerable blogosphere press as a result. One of the keys here is that they understood the underlying importance of forging strong network connections through offline interactions. Since they have forged some strong relationships with local influencers, a next step for them might involve launching a blog that allows them to provide updates to those local influencers who are already part of their social network.

The underlying takeaway from all this is that Barrel Oak didn’t simply launch a blog, Facebook page, etc. They took careful measure of what the existing environment was like and used tools (e-mail / Web site) appropriate for their social network. Social media did play into their overall strategy but more as a component of their PR efforts.