So much of today’s discussions about blogs, social networks, content, etc., gets bogged down in tools and nomenclature.  It’s easy given all the scattered hubris out there.  Forced with creating social media content, applications or even social networks, communicators can chase many red herrings.  But the answer lies in throwing the noise to the side and treating the outreach like a product for your customers.  Because at heart it is (image by kevinthoule).

In an interesting round of tweets on Sunday night, Rich Becker, Ike Pigott and I all agreed there is no one size fits all solution for social media. Instead we have to focus on basic tenents to succeed. That gets back to understanding specific communities and stakeholders, and serving them with well engineered content.

That’s where the product analogy works. By treating online communications and tools as products designed for a specific stakeholder(s), there’s a much higher chance for success.  It’s built to serve.

A couple of months ago, I published 14 step open source social media content generation process on Now Is Gone. This entire process revolves around focusing on core stakeholders and their needs to drive development.

Example: IceBreaker

Marshall Kirkpatrick wrote an interesting article yesterday on whether or not mobile applications are really dead. Many commenters said no. I agree. Many of the apps that have failed (like the cited Yahoo! Mobile) are traditional products designed for the computer screen. They are then repackaged for the mobile phone.

The problem there is the lack of product marketing that goes into creating a truly mobile application. Enter IceBreaker’s Crush or Flush social network with more than 700,000 users.

Crush or Flush was designed specifically for the mobile phone.  It has special features created to protect women who are uninterested in their crushers (and as a result boasts more than 40% female membership). It’s mobile platform agnostic, and has also evolved to allow for mobile advertising. Now the company is moving towards the PC to expand reach with the socially savvy.

In a phone interview last week, Icebreaker VP of marketing Josh Levine said the basic foundation for their success was intelligent product marketing. Josh told me IceBreaker literally aimed to build a social network for the handset. “We didn’t take an existing social network and tried to make it fit. Crush or Flush was built from the ground up  for its users so they would feel natural and comfortable with it.”

And so there you have it.  Success is predicated on having something to be successful with… Without a great product — content, application or network — winning will be elusive.