It’s difficult to miss the transition that offline and online marketing is undergoing right now. And while it’s in vogue to discuss the decline of traditional marketing, traditional marketing isn’t alone in facing stiff competition for budget.

Recently, Ben & Jerry’s informed e-mail subscribers they would no longer be receiving a newsletter but should instead connect with the brand via their Facebook page, which was already 1.3 million fans strong.

I am not suggesting you shelve other programs, but it’s certainly time to see how social media can fit into your current or future marketing efforts.

To make it easier to jump in, let’s start with the premise that you are already, to some degree or another, participating in similar activities via offline methods. You see, social media is actually three separate components we refer to as The Social Three, which mirrors methods you are accustomed to and have been using for years.

Let’s take a look at each:

Social media represents the tools available to get the word out, increase visibility and speak to a specific niche, market or demographic. In other words, you use social media to speak to those who have selected it as their preferred channel. After all, what medium requires 100 percent adoption to be considered viable for marketing efforts? There is no shortage of outlets, with Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Youtube, to name but a few.

Social networking is the day-to-day interaction we have with current or future ideal customers, groups or segments. In short, it is business and/or personal networking, just online.

Networking has long been used as an excellent way of extending and optimizing your circle of influence. The online method is just as applicable.

Social marketing is the subtle, or not so subtle, use of one or more online tools to promote your business, content, service, offers, expertise and promotions to the networks you have established.

We expect our vendors, VARs, dealers and employees to talk well of us, and this is simply another place for them to have a voice.

The real question is how to extract return on investment (ROI) out of social media in a cost-effective and time-conscious way. This is where social media optimization (SMO) comes in.

It is important to develop a plan to maximize your reach with minimal manpower and man hours.

Consider these takeaway steps:

• Develop an elevator pitch and adapt it for use as a bio for each social media profile you create.

• Use a free service like namechk.com to secure your brand's social IDs.

• Schedule social media outbound activity for peak times.

• Use tools like Tweetdeck, Hootsuite or Seesmic to consolidate accounts and narrow focus to keywords and actionable alerts.

• Delegate responsibility and use “post once” services (with caution).

• Sign up for a url-shortening service like bit.ly which will aid in tracking online marketing reach.

• Use business-driven metrics like mentions, interactions and traffic for awareness, then conversion funnels, leads and sales for ROI.

Still not convinced that utilizing The Social Three in your marketing mix is important? In an upcoming article, we will discuss the affect of social media campaigns on your search engine optimization efforts and additional SMO techniques.