I have been wanting to find out more about social media and recently I had the opportunity to sit down with Wayne Sutton for a discussion about blogs, social networks, on-line video, and the broad array of online gidgets and gadgets that go with it.

Wayne is a Social Media Strategist and Technology Evangelist.  Besides his own blogs, Wayne-Sutton.com and Social Wayne, he runs Social Carolina, and iPhones in RTP.

He is also the co-host of the social media podcast Talk Social News together with Kipp Bodnar.  And that is in additional to speaking engagements and staying connected with everyone who is somebody in social media.  Wayne was also the co-organizer of the RTP Startup Weekend earlier this year, together with Jess Martin.

We spoke at some length about the meaning and importance of social media, for individuals and companies. About how some companies get it right and execute well in the social media space (example: Ford) and others don't (example Krispy Kreme).

I had two objectives that I wanted to explore with Wayne:

1. What is the importance of social media to startups?

2. What are the opportunities for startups in social media?

Lets start with some basics.  Social Media is the use of various internet tools for sharing ideas and information among large numbers of users, where all can contribute.   (That's my definition based on a variety of discussions and write-ups about it, the best of which I thought was Ben Parr's.  That means that we can all participate in an online experience that is part discussion, part connection (anything from LinkedIn to dating websites), part commerce for all (think eBay).   You could say its the ultimate democratic equalizer – online we can all be equal.

For startups, and businesses in general, it's a challenge and an opportunity at the same time.  Its a whole new set of activities to engage in and decisions to consider.  On the other hand, its a real inexpensive promotion strategy that, if well executed, can reach a very narrow and specific target segment.   If you're running a start-up and you can find the time to learn and execute a social media campaign yourself, there are many options to get help.  Put “social media consultant” in Google and you will get a long list of companies ready to help you.  Obviously, some better than others, so buyer beware.

We're really in the midst of a major transition in how business is done.   Consumers, especially the younger ones, don't want to be sold anything.  The marketing message gets lost in a sea of media channels and an audience that increasingly only tunes in to non-linear and interactive media (internet, Tivo, YouTube, Twitter, etc).  Technology has empowered the consumer to say “I will only watch what I choose to watch”.

So if you want to get your message out it needs to be meaningful, relevant and entertaining.   I believe consumers have always lived in the long tail, but today's technology allows us to find our messages in our part of the long tail.  Perhaps a bit of a tangent, but social media is a complex concept (try explaining it to your parents!).

So is social media important to startups?

Its probably possible to start a business and ignore social media as a tool to grow your business.   But if you do, you'll leave a lot of money and positive brand awareness on the table.  And worst case, your competitors will steal your business because they did a better job connecting with your customers.

If you embrace social media as a tool to reach out to your customer base – to connect and listen – it will help you build a strong relationship with this group.   The other important consideration is that using social media is a very low-cost way to build brand awareness and you can go head-to-head with much bigger competitors without needing an enormous budget.

What about the other question... are there opportunities in social media for startups?

There are, but keep in mind that the whole social media field is very early in its life-cycle.  There is an avalanche of small apps and many offer the same or similar functionality.   Unless you're living social media the way Wayne does, most people don't want to sign up for numerous different apps that do similar things.   So there is going to be fall-out and consolidation.  But if you like risk with a potentially high upside, there are still many opportunities.

Wayne and I discussed what the best opportunities are in social media.   There seems be real opportunity for apps that consolidate the numerous apps that do similar things.  Nobody wants to use 5 different IM applications.   There are some such solutions out there already, like Pidgin and Adium that consolidate IM conversations.  But what about consolidating the many email accounts we have?   A new application is expected to come out in beta in early 2009, called unblab [www.unblab.com] that will help you manage multiple email accounts and generally manage your daily load of email.  But these are only the tip of the iceberg.  A few years ago there was no Twitter, a few years from now there will be many new apps we can't even imagine today.

If you want to understand more about social media and what it can do for your startup, contact Wayne via any of the social media apps he uses.