There are numerous misguided approaches to using social media as an advertising channel. In these economic hard times, accountability will matter more than it has for a very long time.

There is "good" advertising that can take place in a social media setting, and there is "bad" advertising that can take place in a social media setting.

The kind of advertising that likely stands the best chance of being successful in a social media environment is the kind that more advertising in general needs to use as its approach. 

I've taken up this mantle several times over the last few years: Advertising in today's media-saturated world is to become part of the "flow experience" of the audience member. 

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the psychometrics center at the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University produced a series of studies that looked at how a consumer's online experience influenced his or her feelings, and then, in turn, how their feelings might influence their experience. 

The studies relied on the theories of "flow" as developed by University of Chicago's Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. According to Csikszentmihalyi, flow is "being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost."

What the researchers were looking for was how subjects feel and act, without being conscious of it, when they were online, reading content, looking for information or making online purchases. What effect does the online environment have on people when engaged in either goal-directed or experiential consumption behavior? What kind of impact does the virtual experience have on consumer learning?

The conclusion of several studies found that consumers were generally happier with themselves and their lives when they were engaged in something they were not consciously thinking about, and those companies that offered this kind of experience, albeit without conscious notice from users, benefited from these positive feelings.

Nothing is as good for a product or service than to become an indispensable, if oftentimes subconscious, or maybe unfocused, part of a person's daily life -- part of the "background of everydayness," so to speak. 

The form most advertising has taken over the years is like an Amway salesman crashing a dinner party. Advertising instead needs to either take the form of an appetizer or entree (or cold martini) at the dinner party, or be an invited guest. Both have value to the advertiser because both have value to the "advertised," even if both play different roles at that dinner party. To extend this metaphor, even being the music piped over the stereo system has value. It is the kind of contribution to the environment that, when there, is appreciated but not dwelt on, and when not, its absence is noticed.

I have heard anecdotally that banners that run on a social networking site like MySpace produce lifts in all the kinds of metrics that advertisers cling to in order to demonstrate value. I think that's just great.

I don't know if the "branded community" sites that MySpace builds for its advertisers provide the same value, however. I'd like to think that someone somewhere on the client side, or at the client's agency, is determining this value. What is not at all clear is whether or not the kinds of lifts in the old stand-bys of "soft" metrics translate into the hard metrics of moving the product or service being advertised.

In these economic hard times, I have to believe that accountability will matter more than it has in some time.

The problem with the approach most advertisers take to the social media platform is that they try to assume membership in the community they are targeting. This is a little like being friended by your parents. When done by a brand, it highlights the very lack of authenticity the brand hopes to achieve. 

To pile on the metaphors: One of the best things an advertiser can do is approach social media with a kind of "Star Trek"-like prime directive. Observe first, do not interfere. If the population is ready to be invited into the Federation, extend the invitation. Otherwise, hide within the community as one of them and learn what they are like, as well as what they respond to negatively and positively that comes from within their community. 

These "scouts" are a kind of brand emissary that can report back to base and begin to socialize the home-world's value propositions. An advertiser may already find evidence of enthusiasm for its value proposition (for example, fan pages on MySpace or fan groups on Facebook). If a community is already building up around the advertiser's value proposition, the advertiser should seek first to enhance that environment, whether that is done by starting with a simple graphic presence, or taking it all the way to active, live engagement in the form of chats, exclusive content, offers, etc. 

If the brand can legitimately claim membership to a community, it should do so. This would be the "invited guest" scenario at the dinner party. But if the brand is better suited to appetizer or entree status, the brand should be fine with that. Ending up at the table is, after all, what is most important.

Jim Meskauskas is vice president and director of online media for ICON International Inc., an Omnicom company.