That headline may have tripped off some grammarians’ alarms but if you’re here reading, mission accomplished!

Some thoughtful readings about business relationships and applying social media to care for them gravitated my way this week, inspiring a few thoughts that expand on each.

Identifying And Attracting Your Audience

Perusing a print copy of BtoB’s 2010 Lead Generation Guide surfaced “Social media tips for demand generation” by Marketo’s Maria Pergolino. Maria includes seed nurturing among her methods for developing business leads, noting this is a vital early-stage part of the sales process. Content marketing (or Inbound Marketing as well branded by the HubSpot folks) is then emphasized to which I say “Bravo,” and I’d add a reminder that content offered in various social sharing forms (eBooks, podcasts, communities, etc) succeeds most when it refrains from chest-thumping. Share information prospects need to answer urgent questions even if only mildly associated with your product or service. When you do, as Pergolino notes: expect prospects to return for more content and be more willing to share their own information.

I then started thinking about personalized ways to develop and maintain relationships that now days often begin online before any face-to-face interaction occurs. Valerie Simon from BurrellesLuce shared a nice post recently with suggestions for bridging virtual relationships into real acquaintances. She outlined these with her attendance at today’s PRSA T3 conference for technology communicators in mind. You can draw upon these in nearly any situation. Important here is that you will get the most value using the social media tools that best suit your audience. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t explore other channels yet emphasizes you don’t have to be all things, and everywhere, for all people. Valerie suggests many good options to consider. Knowing where your audience “participates” and spending a large degree of your time sharing there is the ticket!

Engaging That Audience

Denis Pombriant’s “Membership is not participation” post next caught my attention. Denis aptly reminds us that membership in and of itself does not translate to participation. Commenting and contributing content are typical activities that qualify online community members as participants. Call this giving something of value to the community at large. Denis references crowdsourcing and diversity, to which I’ll add that people most naturally contribute to communities based on their areas of expertise. This alone goes a long way towards generating value out of diversity. From there it’s a shared responsibility between a community’s purveyor (a vendor, organization, business person, fan, thought provoker) and its members to keep conversations worthwhile. Recognize and encourage insightful participants to further enlighten the group and keep at offering your own thoughts too. In an attention-deprived culture large membership numbers are impressive but not the only criteria for defining a community’s or company’s success.

Ok, add me to the list of marketers, PR practitioners and bloggers who feel compelled to comment about Apple without any prompting from the company whatsoever. Or have I been prompted in some cosmic way?

Last week’s “at last” arrival of the iPad, its launch event in San Francisco and the PR halo surrounding it signaled yet another moment of truth for the company’s recipe of experience-driven innovation, secrecy and consumer buzz.

Apple’s iPad even made an appearance on the Grammy Awards television broadcast. I found this to be cheesy product placement (I’m not aware if it was an Apple tactic or otherwise), but the Grammys is certainly where eyeballs were last weekend and only an iPad in the President’s pocket during his State of the Union address would have trumped it.

As the Grammy telecast kicked off comedian Stephen Colbert just happened to have an iPad inside his tuxedo pocket when announcing the Song of the Year award winner. I will say that Colbert made the prop “fit” his routine with a funny “what, you didn’t get one of these in your gift bag?” quirk to Jay-Z and the celebrity audience. He further passed it off as trying to be cool for his daughter who was in attendance.

Making the iPad “fit” is really a fitting point here. The cool factor that is Apple products makes many industry observers, techies and consumers want to find viable uses for them. This power of attraction is such an asset for brands. And this doesn’t always require revolutionary but rather evolutionary product strategies, as CRM industry analyst Denis Pombriant commented on in his recent Apple post.

My perspective is less technical and more focused on the communications aspects Apple have at play. I mentioned the company in my “Inside Inbound Marketing” post last week and, the more I ponder, it certainly employs a form of Inbound Marketing, not so much by creating tons of its own compelling and sharable Web content per the intended Inbound definition, but certainly via content. Apple’s content is great products. It’s also the music, videos and iPhone apps it sells (which it does not create but profitably distributes). And most notably it’s the word-of-mouth the company’s presence generates.

The elements of Apple communication mainly boil down to: innovation, mystery and community.

Innovation’s inherent leadership quality

There’s a pecking order to power and influence in just about any market. Apple certainly makes the short list of enterprise-level organizations that move technology markets. Testimony to this was offered this week from a former Microsoft employee. In a New York Times piece Dick Brass contemplates what might be the diminishing impact of Microsoft when compared with Apple on the scale of innovation. In short, fusing its focuses on customer experience and technology has netted the easy-to-use products that have placed Apple in an enviable leadership position.

The moat of mystery (and its occasional, strategic leaks)

Apple seems to make a living out of being quiet and letting the rest of us tell its story. There are pros and cons to this approach, of course, and it is best reserved for a few solidified brands that can weather the cheers and jeers of its publics. Apple has launch events down to an art form and between these occurrences a sort of super sleuth mentality produces much of the Apple chatter. Take these iPad prototype photos for example, or this lavish timeline about the iPad’s history – the iPad that didn’t officially claim until last week. Such examples of speculation and debate usually require a kernel or two of fact, so Apple soft peddles information in some fashion to influencers. It’s all permissible when you have a charismatic leader like Steve Jobs who surfaces occasionally at events to confirm and add context. (I profiled Jobs’ persona in my keynote presentation to PRSSA chapter presidents at their Leadership Rally last May.)

The pure power of communities

For Apple it’s communities of developers and techies. It’s the blogerati. It’s admired tech columnists and reviewers like Walt Mossberg, David Pogue and Lance Ulanoff. It’s consumers. I’m sure there are many other community types but you get the point. Word gets around.

The innovation, mystery and eventual facts feed the communities that create a surge of Apple interest. How long can it last, and what other lifestyle and communication standards will Apple innovation create? I’m certainly not claiming to know Apple’s inner workings from a communications standpoint, or any other, yet even removed from specifics I find that watching its marketing machine work offers an educational and entertaining view. How about you?