On a plane ride the other day, I started feverishly writing notes about what comes next for social media and its place in business communications. The companies who work with us buy into the belief that we're not only using tools like blogging, Twitter, Facebook, video and more for marketing, but that we're intending to take it deeper. We feel that these tools are as important to a company as the phone on your desk, or email. We see social software as the new nervous system and the new dialtone of an organization. With that in mind, here's what we're working on with clients in that regard, in the form of some questions.

How Do We Share? - We work through the various ways that social tools allow information to flow, internally and externally. We do this from a few perspectives: make the content WORTH sharing is first, and then make the technology easy to share is second. For instance, when we work with people on their live events, we build packages of tools together that will spread the video, the photos, the tweets, and all the other inspired content, so that their events extend further.

How Do We Develop Relationships That Yield? - We push that a big number isn't important; a number that indicates your loyal community is important. Relationship-building on the web goes beyond a hokey loyalty program tied to % off for purchase. We look for ways to improve community interaction, ways to empower our clients' customers, and other ways for people to feel more connected and valued than in the old models of marketing.  But, that doesn't mean that we don't measure social media efforts because we do.

How Do We Equip Better Interactions? - With so many people interested in how presence management (such as companies using Twitter as a means of connecting with customers and suppliers) changes the game, we're looking for ways to wire that deeper into the organization. Shouldn't your sales team know that your top customer is having a tough time at the office, so today might not be the day to try and collect on the payment due? What happens when hotels and airlines go beyond the customer service and reservations marketing and deeper into quality of service throughout the organization. Can we empower even more in that regard?

As New Marketing Labs moves deeper into 2010, that's what the team is planning on covering. We're extending our relationships with our current client partners, and we're excited to talk with people about what comes next for all these tools and how to integrate them into your marketing and communications efforts. It's your business; it's our passion.

Photo by: alexanderdrachmann