While we’ve known for a while that an integrated approach is the best way forward when it comes to marketing, social media can often be the fly in the ointment. Only this morning I saw a question on LinkedIn asking how you make sure Social Media is integrated as opposed to a separate being. My answer to this is simple: You need to start from the beginning of your planning process and not jump to ideas, tactics and channels. In addition, you need to view social media in the right way – it’s a channel, not an idea, tactic or strategy in it’s own right.

Starting from the beginning, ask yourself what you goal is, what are your objectives are, who you want to talk to and then you can start thinking about the best places and ways to achieve this. This is where social media comes in, if you’ve followed the path outlined above, then social media will naturally be integrated within your wider strategy. By viewing social media as a channel, you naturally have a unified approach, but the trick is to view this “channel” on it’s attributes, thus it become a “conversational” opportunity and should be utilised in this way.

Which brings me on to a post that featured on the GolinHarris (the company I work for) Speaking of Social Media Posterous page. The post in question covers a new piece of research from Physhster Inc. and AllRecpices.com  which found that social ads are most effective when complementing relevant content, which takes the integrated argument right through to the actual placement of your content. You can read the full post here or download the report here