There were a few grumblings this week that the session content at SXSW wasn’t amazing.  However, there were many more people that derived a ton of value outside of the sessions by having casual conversations with some of the thought leaders in the industry.

So it got me thinking.  Who are the top social media thought leaders?  Who should we be listening to?  Looking for guidance from?

I’m certainly not smart enough to figure it out, so I need your help.   For the second year I have put together Social Media March Madness.  Just like the basketball brackets you will be filling out in your office rather than working this week, I’ve set-up a Social Media March Madness bracket of the top 32 thought leaders.  Please fill out the Social Media Madness bracket by clicking here for the Facebook application.  If you think I seeded someone too low than click the upset in the match-up.

Below are the seeds and information on some (not all) of the players, and yes just like the basketball selection committee there is no doubt I left some deserving people off or made other mistakes (feel free to let me know!).

• Dan Zarella: Often called a social media scientist Dan does a great job of collecting tons of data and making sense of it all by spotting trends.  He has interesting findings on which types of tweets have the best chance to be re-tweeted.  He is a Product Owner at Hubspot and is the author of The Social Media Marketing Book. @danzarella
• Gary Vaynerchuk: Social media sommelier. Vaynerchuk may be the one who benefited the most from social media. Although his antics are somewhat controversial, he has proven that passion + effort + social media = a healthy return. He has helped grow his family wine business from $4 million to $50 million through the use of social media. He is best known for his Wine Library TV — a series of videos giving insights on wine. He is also author of “Crush It,” a short book detailing how he uses social media and that anyone can do this. @garyvee
• Liz Strauss: Liz Strauss is an influential non-celebrity blogger helping people to learn. She’s been called an idea machine and is the CEO and founder of SOBCon, author of the popular Successful-Blog.com.  She likes to provide the human touch. @lizstrauss
• Biz Stone: Co-Founder of Twitter.@bizstone
• Brian Solis: Solis is principal of FutureWorks, an award-winning PR and new media agency in Silicon Valley. His new book “Engage” has a foreward from Ashton Kutcher. Solis is cofounder of the Social Media Club and is an original member of the Media 2.0 Workgroup. @briansolis
• Jessica Smith: A Maryland Terrapin and VP at Fleishman-Hillard she recently entertained her client Chevrolet down at SXSW.  She developed her skills at Sapient back in the late 90’s.  @JessicaKnows
• Mari Smith: Social media business coach. Fast Company called Smith the “Pied Piper of Online.” She has intimate insight on social media strategy for small business and is an expert on Facebook Fan Pages. Her smile, Canadian accent and ebullient personality have attracted many fans and followers — she is a great case study in developing ones own brand. Smith combines a good mix of energy and honesty. She is also well known for her fun hats in her Twitter profile photos. @MariSmith
• Shiv Singh: Singh is Avenue A Razorfish VP & global social media lead. He is also the author of “Social Media for Dummies.” He is a regular author and contributor to numerous Avenue A Razorfish white papers and studies on social media. One such report that is worth a read is: “Fluent: Razorfish Social Media Influence Report.” @shivsingh
• Clay Shirky: Shirky, an adjunct professor in NYU’s graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), is one of the world’s most requested speakers on social media. @cshirky
• Peter Shankman: Shankman is perhaps best known for founding Help a Reporter Out (HARO). In addition to HARO, he is the founder and CEO of The Geek Factory, Inc., a boutique marketing and PR strategy firm located in New York City, with clients worldwide. @skydiver
• Dharmesh Shah: Co-Founder of Hubspot, Dharmesh is a very entertaining and informative social media speaker.  He is co-Author of the best selling book “Inbound Marketing.”
• David Meerman Scott: Marketing strategist and author. Scott was well ahead of the curve in 2007 with his best selling book, “The New Rules of Marketing & PR.” He appears to have another winner in the book, “Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs” — as a contributing author and editor. Scott is very generous with his time and is an active contributor across the Web and on the speaking circuit. @dmscott
• Jeremiah Owyang: Partner, customer strategy, Altimeter Group. Owyang’s tremendous insight from his tweets is enough to make this list. Aside from his work at Altimeter he is also a columnist for Forbes CMO Network. He is also a great complement to Charlene Li at the Altimeter Group. He excels at interpreting news and, as an industry analyst, tells us “what it means” and is a great reference for the market. @jowyang
• Lee Odden: Odden is one of 25 online marketing experts featured in “Online Marketing Heroes,” published by Wiley, and has been cited for his search and social media marketing expertise by The Economist, US News & World Report, and Fortune magazine. Odden is the CEO of TopRank Online Marketing. @LeeOdden
• Amber Naslund: Director of Community for @Radian6. She loves to dissect the collision of community and business within social media. @AmberCadabra
• Dave Morin: Former senior platform manager at Facebook. Morin was named as one of the “100 Most Creative People in Business” by Fast Company in 2009. Rumor is he is doing some collaborative work with Sean Fannigan. @davemorin
• Scott Monty: Digital and multimedia communications manager at Ford Motor Company. Monty practices what he preaches by having ongoing conversations with car buyers and influencers. While he is a marketer rather than an engineer, his new type of thinking and passion has changed the way Ford thinks about everything, and is why Ford is looking more like a Macintosh computer and less like a Model T. Some of Ford’s new cars will be enabled with Wi-Fi. Much can be learned from Monty’s intelligence, foresight, and fortitude. @scottmonty

• Amy Jo Martin: Has over 1.3 million followers on Twitter, she works with Shaq and other professional athletes/franchises.  She recently hosted a few NFL teams at the Social Media Clubhouse during SXSW. @digtialroyalty

• Valeria Maltoni: Her blog, ConversationAgent, is recognized among the world’s top online marketing blogs (among the top 25 on Advertising Age’s Power 150, as well as three categories in Guy Kawasaki’s Alltop). Maltoni was handpicked by Fast Company as an expert blogger to write about creating conversations between the marketer and customer. She built one of the first online communities affiliated with the magazine. @ConversationAge
• Charlene Li: Founder of Altimeter Group and coauthor of “Groundswell” (along with Josh Bernoff), she is also a great public speaker and has presented frequently at top technology conferences such as Web 2.0 Expo, SXSW, Search Engine Strategies, and the American Society of Association Executives. Her next book is “Open: How Leaders Win By Letting Go.” @charleneli
• Guy Kawasaki: Founding partner at Garage and cofounder of Alltop. Kawasaki describes Alltop as an “online magazine rack.” Kawasaki has written nine books and always seems to be one step ahead of the curve. I can personally thank him for turning me on to Twitter long before CNN started using it obsessively. If you have a chance to read Kawasaki’s bio it is well worth it — a very interesting background (Apple disciple) and an avid hockey fan. @GuyKawasaki
• Mitch Joel: Marketing Magazine dubbed him the “Rock Star of Digital Marketing” and called him, “one of North America’s leading digital visionaries.” The author of the book, “Six Pixels of Separation,” he’s also a former board member of the Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada. @MitchJoel
• Brian Halligan: Cofounder and CEO of HubSpot. Halligan is also coauthor of “Inbound Marketing,” which has been flying off the shelves since its Octoberrelease (coauthors are Dharmesh Shah and David Meerman Scott). Aside from being wicked smart (Sloan Fellow at MIT), he is a normal dude who enjoys playing guitar, tennis, and taking in a Red Sox game. @bhalligan
• Paul Gillin: He was editor-in-chief and executive editor of the technology weekly, “Computerworld” for 15 years. His 2007 book, “The New Influencers” was awarded a silver medal in the business category by ForeWord magazine. @pgillin
• Maggie Fox: Founder and CEO of Social Media Group.com, one of the world’s largest independent social media agencies. Ford’s social media agency since 2007. @maggiefox
• Sarah Evans: A self-described “social media freak,” Sarah initiated and moderates #journchat, the weekly live chat between PR professionals, journalists and bloggers on Twitter. She is also guest writer for Mashable. @prsarahevans
• Frank Eliason: He put customer service on the social media map by his pioneering on Twitter with Comcast.  Great guy and it is transparent in everything he does. @comcastcares
• Sam Decker: Sam has been a thought leader in the space since his days at Dell.  As the CMO of Ausitn based BazaarVoice he is helping to lead the charge on Social Commerce and truly helping Socialnomics become a reality by among other things combing social data with rating data (what do my friends buy and like?). @samdecker
• Pete Cashmore: Founder of Mashable and Brad Pitt of Social Media.  A true celebrity, but still a very nice guy with a Scottish accent.
• Chris Brogan: President, New Marketing Labs. Brogan is recognized as one of the “World’s Top Bloggers” (Advertising Age Power 150 Top 10 Blog) and his book, “Trust Agents” (coauthor is Julien Smith) reached The New York Times Best Seller’s list in 2009. His new book Social Media 101 was recently released.  Chris is also the cofounder of the PodCamp new media conference series. Chris takes time to respond to almost everyone that reaches out to him. @chrisbrogan
• Josh Bernoff: Coauthor of the BusinessWeek best-selling book, “Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies,” Bernoff is senior vice president, idea development, at Forrester Research. @jbernoff
• Jay Baer: Greetings. Jay has founded 5 companies, and spent 15 years running digital marketing agencies. He has worked with the biggest of the big brands. Founder of convince and convert. @jaybaer

Bubble Players (Just missed!)
Corey Perlman, Louis Gray, Richard Binhammer, Richard Binhammer, Robert Scoble, Lee Aase, Brian Reich, Eric Bradlow, Sally Falkow, Don Steele, Julien Smith, Michael Lazerow, Sarah Hofstetter, Mike Lewis, Mack Collier, Mike Barbeau, Todd Defren, Tom Gerace, Elizabeth Pigg, Richard MacManus, Jon Gibs, Chris Cunningham, Paul Beck, Matt Goddard, Chris Heuer, CC Chapman, Chris Penn, Shel Israel, Tamar Weinberg, Larry Weber, Morgan Johnston, Tim Washer, David Armano, Mark Cattini, Nick O’Neil, Mike Stelzner, Jason Falls, Dave Kerpen,  Sonia Simone,  Adam Singer, Michael Brito, Geoff Livingston, Wayne Sutton.

Will these predictions be the final results? Or, will there be major upsets! Fill out your bracket today.

So far Facebook has captured the most overall wins with YouTube coming in second, but it’s a tight race.  Fill out your backet today via this bracket Facebook application (vote) and feel free to send me your thoughts on seeding/participants on Twitter @equalman.

The Final Four

This is today’s social media goliath. After opening its network up beyond college students in late 2006, Facebook has quickly risen to the top, which is why it’s the overall number one seed and the favorite to win it all.

Key Wins: Status Updates and Photo Tagging allow users to easily stay connected throughout the day. Facebook is the most-used photo-sharing platform in the world, having more activity than all other photo sites (Ofoto, Flickr, Snapfish, etc.) combined. Facebook Connect allows users to use their Facebook login on various sites (e.g., CNET) to post comments and reviews. They have 180 million users in 170 countries in 35 different languages.

Key Losses: The poorly handled releases of some new product offerings like Beacon haven’t helped assuage privacy concerns. Beacon follows user purchase behaviors around the Web and in one instance alerted a girlfriend that her boyfriend had purchased an engagement ring on Amazon. Blocked by Syria and Iran. Still struggling to find a sound revenue model.

Business Use: Setting up fan and group pages is a good way for loyal users to engage and take ownership of your brand. Victoria’s Secret has more than1 million fans and Barack Obama has close to 5.5 million fans.

Coach: CEO Mark Zuckerberg is only 24 years old and has this Palo Alto company valuation at around $3.75 billion (down from $15 billion).

 Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to post their latest updates. An update is limited by 140 characters and can be posted through three methods: web form, text message, or instant message.

Key wins: Probably the most talked about company in the bracket the last month.  Skittles.com using Twitter as their home page has given them great exposure as has CNN and Shaq. 

Key losses: Twitter still hasn’t figured out a good way to make money (10 Ways Twitter Can Make Money) although they recently announced premium packages fittingly named after birds sparrow, dove, owl and eagle.  While their server issues and downtimes have been greatly improved they are still an issue.  Facebook’s new design is very similar to Twitter and could chew into Twitter’s market share.  While Moms are joining Facebook, Twitter is still primarily used by celebrities, companies and the technorati.

Business Use: At a minimum, companies should be using search.twitter.com to see what is being said about their product.  Zappos, JetBlue, CNN, EF Tours, Skittles and Comcast are good examples of companies that understand the business use.

Coach: Evan Williams spent some time at Google before leaving in 2004.  Twitter is headquartered in San Francisco.  He was named in Time’s 2008 Top 25 Most Influential People on the Web.

 YouTube is the leader in online video, sharing original videos worldwide through a Web experience. YouTube allows people to easily upload and share video clips across the Internet through websites, mobile devices, blogs, and email.

Key wins: The dominant online video destination.  Google was purchased by Google in October of 2006 for $1.65 Billion only a year after launch.

Key losses: Hulu and others will prove to be stiff competition in the future as all television and entertainment content moves online.  Google CEO Eric Schmidt has admitted that YouTube has struggled to monetize.  Perception by Fortune 500 companies is that it’s not easy nor brand friendly to advertise on YouTube.  Have been sued by Viacom.

Business Use: Companies need to leverage their customer base enthusiasm for their product and showcase these videos on YouTube.  Anything companies can do to encourage this type of behavior will help spread their brand awareness.  Attempting to develop something viral is very difficult to do within internal marketing departments. 

Coach: YouTube was founded in 2005 by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim – all early employees of PayPal.  Chad is the current CEO headquartered in San Bruno, CA. 

 Some argue Wikipedia started the open source and social sharing revolution. Despite naysayers, studies have shown that Wikipedia is as accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica.

Key Wins: Almost pervasively the number one search result in Google for any topic or public figure related search query. As a result of Wikipedia’s success, Encyclopedia Britannica recently adopted a hybrid of the Wikipedia model.

Key Losses: The technology isn’t the most user friendly. It would be difficult for the general Internet population to quickly and easily figure out how to thoroughly update and edit; perhaps this is by design. Just like with DMOZ a few years back, the people who have earned editor status have too much power and they love to use it. For the longest time, CNET’s Tom Merritt, Molly Wood, and Jason Howell were scrubbed by editors. Are you kidding? Wikipedia also makes a habit of blacklisting blogs. For niche topics, the accuracy can be less than reliable.

Business Use: You need to know what is written about your company and make appropriate, non-hyperbolic edits. If you can optimize for search, all the better.

Coach: CEO Jimmy Wales founded the company (along with Larry Sanger) in January 2001, and is based in San Francisco.  

Other Players:

 Flickr is a video and photo sharing site that has two main objectives 1) help people make their content available to the people who matter to them and 2) enable new ways of organizing photos and video.

Key wins: Yahoo purchased Flickr for $35 million in March of 2005.  Sites like Snapfish, Ofoto, etc. have made it difficult for users to easily share photos and flickr has benefited.  Flickr has expanded into video sharing.

Key losses: Facebook has quickly overtaken Flickr as the number one photo sharing destination.  What’s their long term revenue model?

Business Use: Companies should setup accounts to host appropriate video and photos.  This is a particularly helpful tool when running photo contests as its inherent sharing capabilities enable user generated photos to be quickly distributed to your company site as well as other social media sites.

Coach: Former game designers Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake created Flickr, in 2004.  Butterfield is currently in charge.   

 Delicious is a social book marking Web site. It’s used to store bookmarks online, which allows you to access the same bookmarks from any computer and add bookmarks from anywhere, too.

Key wins: Got rid of the hard-to-remember del.icio.us URL. Tags allow you to organize and remember your bookmarks, which is a much more flexible system than folders. Acquired by Yahoo in 2005 for an estimated $10-$15 million.

Key losses: Founder Joshua Schachter left January 12 to join Google.

Business Use: Easy for employees in the same department to keep track of relevant sites and articles. Also for content and entertainment producers it’s an easy way to determine which articles/postings the general public finds most relevant.

Coach: Managed by Yahoo, Sunnyvale, California. 

 LinkedIn is a professional networking site that allows members to create business contacts, search for jobs, and find potential clients.

Key wins: With more than 30 million users representing 150 industries around they have a virtual monopoly on the professional networking field.

Key losses: User aren’t active nor is the network “sticky.”  They use the site for specific periodic needs. 

Business Use: This will be the place in the future where almost all jobs are searched for and found.  It’s important for companies to establish a respectable and polished presence as well as begin to build out their network.  This not only includes human resources, but the leaders and executives in these companies.

Coach: Reid Hoffman is the CEO and they are based out of Mountain View, CA. 

 Orkut is a social networking service that is run by Google and named after its creator, Turkish Google engineer Orkut Buyukkokten.

Key wins: Dominates the social network market share for Latin America, in particular Brazil. It’s also arguably the most popular social network in India and the second most visited site.

Key losses: Over dependent on Brazil (58 percent of its users). Not contributing much revenue to Google, which is looking to eliminate underperforming business units.

Business Use: Great play for companies heavy in Latin and South America.

Coach: Owned by Google, Mountain View, California. In August 2008 announced that Orkut hosting would be moved from California to Brazil.  

 Yammer is often described as the internal social network for businesses, or the Twitter for business. It’s the self-professed water cooler, allowing employees to update other employees about articles and events (free bagels in kitchen), which is much more efficient and effective than e-mail. It allows e-mail to be saved for items that require a response and eliminates cc: abuse.

Key wins: Cisco, Xerox, and Hewlett-Packard all use it to help increase conversation and communication between employees while reducing meetings. Access is limited by company e-mail address.

Key losses: Is this really increasing business productivity or simply adding one more inbox that employees need to check?

Business Use: Sign-up is easy and free. Rather than answer the Twitter question “What are you doing?” employees answer the question “What are you working on?”

Coach: PayPal co-founder David Sacks, West Hollywood, California; originally built as an internal tool for Geni — it was so effective that they made it public in 2008.  

 Digg is a social bookmarking site. After content is submitted other people “Digg” what they like best. Stories that receive enough Diggs are promoted to the front page.

Key Wins: Attracts at least 236 million visitors annually, according to Compete. Founder Kevin Rose was on the cover of BusinessWeek.

Key Losses: Have faced a user revolt as a result of some companies gaming the system. BusinessWeek reported that Digg lost $4 million on $6.4 million of revenue in the first three quarters of 2008.

Business Use: Don’t try to game the system. This will end poorly. Follow what your customers/readers find of most interest and adjust product/services/content accordingly.

Coach: CEO Jay Adelson is based out of Digg’s San Francisco headquarters.  

 Hulu is NBC Universal and News Corporation’s online video joint venture. The site focuses exclusively on professional content and serves the video within an embedded player on Hulu.

Key wins: Advertising brand recall is higher in Hulu than on traditional TV networks as a result McDonald’s, BestBuy, HP, ALPO, etc. have made large media buys. One reason is they tell the user there will be a 30-second commercial and shows the seconds counting down. Avoids the Tivo/DVR issue. Hulu served about 221 million streams to about 7.5 million unique visitors in November, up from 206 million videos and 9 million unique visitors in October.

Key losses: Hulu may turn out to be the Napster of online video viewing. They’re victims of their own success as entertainment providers crack the privacy whip.

Business Use: Achieves great brand recall and awareness for companies willing to get creative.

Coach: CEO Jason Kilar spent almost a decade at Amazon.com before heading up this Los Angeles-based venture.  

 Hi5 is a social network site similar to Facebook, Orkut, and MySpace. According to comScore, in 2008 hi5 was the third most popular social networking site in terms of monthly unique visitors. Ranked as a top 20 Web site globally and the number one social network in more than 30 countries across Latin America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Available in 37 languages.

Key wins: As of February, hi5 claims to have more than 80 million active members, which is up from 60 million in December. Hi5 claims to be number one in the Spanish speaking community.

Key losses: For how successful hi5 has been they do not get much press — primarily due to its limited U.S. market share. In Thailand, where they have a solid market share, users are starting to use Facebook, even though Facebook isn’t specifically tailored for the Thai market. Is this a sign of things to come?

Business Use: It’s very important for global companies to test and play in the Latin and Asian markets, where hi5 has significant market share.

Coach: Privately held firm is steered by founder and CEO Ramu Yalamanchi out of San Francisco.

 MySpace, which launched January 1 2004, is a popular social networking site that lets friends share, message and stay connected.

Key wins: Started social network craze.  Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation acquired MySpace in June 2005.  In August of 2006 signed a $900 million dollar deal with Google for Google to be the exclusive search provider.  MySpace is profitable. 

Key losses: A poor technology platform and limited advancement of the product has allowed competitors like Hi5, Facebook, etc. to over take them in various markets.  Google deal expires next year which may be the reason they are profitable.

Business Use: If you are a celebrity or band, MySpace is the place you want to be to promote yourself.

Coach: Co-Founder and CEO Chris DeWolf steers the company from Los Angeles DeWolfe has B.A. degree in Finance from the University of Washington and an MBA from the University of Southern California.

 LiveMocha is a hybrid between social network and a language learning Website. 

Key wins: Have the backing of Starbuck’s CEO Howard Schultz, which may be way the name is closely related to coffee.  New York Times calls it “a powerful opportunity for people around the world to connect with language partners.” Limited competition; LiveMocha competes with italki, a China-based startup offering similar services.

Key losses: Not much brand awareness, still in beta mode.  Overwhelming number of Chinese attempting to learn English don’t have enough English friends trying to learn Chinese.  

Business Use: Most applicable for travel and offline language learning tools.  Also, if employees are trying to learn a language for business reasons this is a great free way.

Coach: CEO and Chief Roaster Shirish Nadkarni enjoys his coffee in Bellevue, WA

Since College Basketball’s March Madness is almost upon us, I felt it only appropriate to put together a Social Media Madness bracket in the hopes of answering: Who is or who will become the king of Social Media?  Is it Facebook? Twitter? Or is it a “Cinderella Player” like Livemocha?  Fill out your picks here Facebook’s Bracket Builder !

We are down to the Sweet Sixteen.  For each company I list their strengths (key wins) and weaknesses (key losses) and point out how your company or brand can leverage these social media offerings.  This week we discuss the winners and losers of Region One and detail out this week’s Region Two match-ups. 

Digg is a social bookmarketing site.  After content is submitted other people “Digg” what they like best. If your story receives enough Diggs, it’s promoted to the front page.

 

Key losses: For how succesful they’ve been they do not get much press.  In Thailand where they have a solid market share users are starting to use Facebook, even though Facebook isn’t tailored for the Thai market specificly.  Is this a sign of things to come?

Business Use:  Very important for Global companies to test and play in the Latin and Asian markets where Hi5 has significant market share.

This is today’s social media Goliath.  After opening its network up beyond college students in late 2006 Facebook has quickly risen to the top and is why it’s this tournaments’ overall number one seed and the hands down favorite to win it all.