Well - I'd love to vote but impossible since I do not know enough about any of them. Is there a page that summarizes them?

Judy Shapiro

It makes business sense to go so deep and is brand suicide.

Social network sites (like FB) are the hub that all the other Yahoo services will revolve around. This "satellite" strategy ultimately leaves the Yahoo brand weakened (what's one photo sharing site versus another). Doing this will suck even more brand equity out of the Yahoo brand as people understand less and less what Yahoo does.

It would have been better had they done this integration but with a counter strategy for a Yahoo "hub". I remain optimistic that they will realize the secret weapon they have in Yahoo news (global and local). It is their ace in the hole. I wish they would play it already.

Yahoo had to do this -- I hope the price is not too steep.

Judy Shapiro

I love this article but I would turn around the headline from: "Is your brand social enough?" to "Is your social strategy branded enough?"

The problem I see with most social strategies is that - well - there is no strategy beyond hitting metrics associated with the number of fans in a group or number of interactions. Social media strategies and programs need to drive to specific business results.

The key, therefore, is to ensure that your social strategy is designed to be a branded interaction engine that can be monetized in a variety of ways, (e.g. -- ads, products sales etc etc). I love your well edited list because it provides the strategic guideposts to do just that. Add a well designed layer of technology platforms for content and community management and voila – you have a well branded interaction engine based on the dynamics of social media.

That’s when the marketing fun really begins.

Judy Shapiro

Hi Jesse - Great juxtaposition of these positions. My POV reflects lots of years of doing "traditional" branding and marketing with the last 4 years focused on social and digital media.

IMHO here's what's not changed -- branding smarts! The ability to crisply express your brand value. And Pete is right when he says that is old as the hills.

Here's what's changed - everything else like; 1) digital listening versus research based listening 2) social media engagement versus one to many marketing 3) iterative brand execution versus "big brand launches".

More and more I have found myself having to throw out most of what I thought I knew about marketing execution in favor of an updated model. In this new model, it's that not you don't do these other more traditional tactics but what's changed is WHEN AND HOW you use them.

Some companies have long understood all about social media branding like Harley Davidson, as one commenter on my piece explained.

The struggle for marketers today is that you still need maturity of branding smarts that typically comes with experienced folks but now these strategies must be developed within the context of a new branding engine that younger "techno geners" are better at understanding.

There are few marketing people with strategy depth coupled with social media competency. At least as far as I have observed.

Judy Shapiro