During Social Media Week’s panel on Social Graph Optimization that I had the pleasure and honor of moderating, I was able to get in a bunch of the questions that I had for the panel, including Meebo’s Seth Sternberg (@sethjs), Wiredset/Trendrr’s Mark Ghuneim (@MarkGhuneim), Droga 5’s Hashem Bajwa (@HashemBajwa), and Anna “the analyst” O’Brien (@annaobrien).

You can read the official SMW blog post by Amanda Rykoff (@amandarykoff) for the details of what was covered there, including what social graph optimization really means (I’m not as convinced as some panelists that we need this as a discipline separate from social media optimization), what marketers need to measure, and where mobile location-based services fit in. That last discussion was inspired by @BukolaE, who’s not even in New York City currently but participated via social media. If you’re so inclined you can catch the whole session’s video.

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Social graph ad targeting is a way for marketers to target consumers based on who they’re connected to within online social networks.

Marketers often run campaigns that target consumers based on their age and gender (demographic), where they live or happen to be at the moment (geographic), what they’re viewing on a Web page (contextual), what Web sites they’ve visited and what they do there (behavioral), or what keywords they’re entering in a query box (search engine marketing). With social graph ad targeting, it’s now possible to target consumers based on their associations with each other.

This type of marketing targets consumers based on their social graph, or the map of who they’re connected to – and it can happen several ways:

• Within a social network
• Across social networks
• Across publishers

The following 360i report includes an overview of this type of ad targeting, reviews notable vendors in the space and addresses the key questions marketers should ask when considering running such advertising.

360i POV on Social Graph Ad Targeting