Here are more responses to questions that time didn’t permit me to answer during the AMA Marketing Seminar on Oct. 15. Each of these permalinks is tagged “AMA” so you can easily group them together. Thanks to everyone for coming and for asking such great questions. More to come!

Q: Stacie asks, “How will social media play out with healthcare vs. consumer products?”

A: Very differently. People typically want to consult with expert advisers on healthcare decisions and their relationships with those people are important. They’re much less likely to turn to anonymous sources for life-and-death matters. That said, the Internet has played and will continue to play an important role in alternative medicine, wellness and background research. Social media will have an important role in helping people diagnose problems, choose courses of treatment and seek alternatives.

In consumer products, social media is already playing a huge role in evaluation and purchase activity. The CEO of Procter & Gamble told the Association of National Advertisers last year that they have to stop trying to control the message. “Consumers are more participative and selective and the trend from push to pull is accelerating,” he said. Those are strong words coming from the world’s largest consumer products company.

Q: Anne asks, ”Doesn’t social networking skew younger? And, do these networks apply to B2B marketers?”

A: Yes, the most active users of social networks are unquestionably people under the age of 30. If you’re an entertainment, food or clothing company, you’re probably already using these media because that’s where your audience is.

In some markets, though, social media is making a big impact on older age groups, and particularly in b-to-b markets. The information technology market is one of the most active users of blogs and podcasts, for example, and it’s almost entirely a b-to-b business. The travel and hospitality industry is using interactive marketing to reach business people with specific interests, such as frequent travelers and corporate event planners. Professional associations like the Air Conditioning Contractors of America and the National Association of Manufacturers are blogging to promote their members. There will be more examples of this as the younger population grows up and begins to apply the tools they use at home to their business roles.

Q: Patience asks “So why did you choose to not self-publish?”

A: I believe this question is in response to a comment I made about Lulu.com and similar sites that making self-publishing of books fast and relatively inexpensive. There are advantages to working with a commercial publisher, including an established distribution network, retail store presence and a certain cachet that comes from having a publisher endorse your work. This leads to intangible business opportunities that have nothing to do with royalties. You can definitely make more money self-publishing, though. If you don’t particularly care about building a speaking or consulting business, but just want to get a message out, self-publishing gives you more control and potentially bigger profits.

Q: Brent asks, “Are there similar influencers in Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America?”

A: Yes, although to different degrees. In fact, the number one language in the blogosphere is Japanese, according to Technorati’s State of the Live Web report. Korea and Japan have a much higher penetration of broadband into the home than the U.S. does, and a very active culture of bloggers and social networkers as a result. Korea’s OhMyNews.com is the largest experiment in community journalism on the Internet.

In Europe, the blogosphere is very healthy, although my evidence is purely anecdotal. I run across blogs in Danish, German, French and other languages I don’t even recognize all the time. Two of the most interesting corporate blogs are published by Benetton and Ducati motorcycles, both in Italy.

I can’t speak to Latin-America specifically. The economy is not as strong in many of those countries as in the U.S., Europe and the Pacific Rim, so broadband penetration is lower. The Technorati blog tracks blogs by language and can give you some useful statistics.

Q: Anne asks, “How do apply this to local or regional marketing? Yelp, for instance is very biased, and doesn’t feel trustworthy the way that a more neutral, traditional third party does.”

A: I’m not sure I agree with your comments about Yelp. That site is simply a conduit for its members to post reviews of restaurants and entertainment spots. While such a system is always vulnerable to manipulation, the number of reviews that Yelp lists for some properties is remarkable. In general, the more reviews there are, the more reliable the average rating should be.

You should always be leery of peer-review systems in which only a few people have commented. It’s like research: you should probably through out the extremes at both ends of the scale, because those people may have an agenda.

As far as regional marketing goes, I’d just point out that some of the most active social networks are regional. Going.com, Yelp and eCrush are just three of the many networks that target people who are looking for entertainment and companionship. Also, regional interests like sports and politics are magnets for local audiences.

I had the pleasure of being the guest speaker on and American Marketing Association webinar sponsored by Aquent early this week. We had a great audience — more than 750 people attended — and there were more than 20 questions that I was unable to answer because of time limitations. I’ll answer each of them in a series of blog posts over the next few days. Each of these permalinks will be tagged “AMA” so you can easily group them together. Thanks to everyone for coming and for asking such great questions.

Q: [At one point, I referred to a story told by blogger Robert Scoble about a technology vendor who told him that a single link on his blog drew far more response than an article in a prominent technology magazine.] Jennifer asks, “How did the software company evaluate the influence of Scoble’s blog?”

A: Simply by traffic to the page linked to by Scoble. This is one of the great benefits of social media marketing: you can easily track referring links from other sites and quickly figure out who is sending you traffic. This is standard information that all Web analytics software provides. Obviously, the people who are sending you the most traffic are the people who should get more of your attention and outreach.

Q: Lidia asks, “I would like to know your opinion related to the large influence this phenomena is having on small kids that are exposed to these new media sites like clubpenguin, etc. How will these affect their personality, their habits, etc?

A: I’m not a psychologist, and it’s impossible to predict the indirect impact of the behaviors that social media sites are creating. I believe that a few changes are inevitable:

• Kids will define their relationships very differently, with geography being much less important than in the past. They are already learning to form rich and meaningful relationships with people they have never met, solely through the use of digital technology. They care little about where their friends live as long as they can communicate about topics of mutual interest. If you take this to its logical conclusion, you can see that national boundaries will become less important to relationships in the future. It seems to me that that’s a good thing.
• Kids will grow up expecting to be constantly connected and to always have information at their fingertips. Call it the Wikipedia generation. This is completely different from the world of previous generations. Today’s kids will expect to be able to access whatever information they want within a few seconds, and will be frustrated and angry when it’s unavailable. This will put pressure on institutions to open up and give people access to whatever information they need to make a decision. Again, this sounds pretty good to me.
• There’s a possibility the kids will grow up being less worldly and less well-rounded than generations that preceded them because of their ability to filter information they consume. I’m hoping that natural curiosity counteracts this trend, but the declining influence of mainstream media may create a generation that is more insular and less aware of world issues than previous generations.
• There’s a risk of negative health consequences caused by a more sedentary lifestyle. There’s no question in my mind that the current epidemic of childhood obesity is due, at least in part, to the pervasive use of video games and online entertainment instead of physical recreation. It will be up to parents, schools and government to encourage physical activity by kids who don’t have as much incentive to get out and play anymore. I don’t think we’re seeing as much progress in this area as we need to, and it concerns me.

I’m sure there will be many other long-term effects of this new digital lifestyle, some good and some bad. I think the breaking down of cultural and geographic barriers, though, will be a very positive development.

Q: Charlayne asks, “How does a company build “blog” integrity without sounding as if they are their own advertisement? How does a company build positive brand awareness via a blog?”

A: I’ll answer the first part of that question by simply saying don’t use your blog to sell. The purpose of a business blog should be to engage with customers and prospects around information that is of mutual interest. Use it to expose smart people in your company, discuss issues in the market, identify customer needs and seek feedback on your products and priorities. Don’t use it to deliver advertisements; if you do, no one will read it and you will quickly lose interest yourself.

The second question is very large and could be the subject of a book. In fact, it is the subject of several books. I’d recommend Naked Conversations by Scoble and Israel; Marketing to the Social Web by Weber; What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting by Demopoulos, The Corporate Blogging Book by Weil; and The New Rules of Marketing and PR by Scott. It’s impossible to summarize the advice contained in all of these volumes, so I will simply recommend that you pick any one of them and dive in.