The Brains of the Outfit

Got the faculty guide for the first course I’m teaching at Shorter College in 2010 today “Understanding Markets and the Environment.” Looks like it’s going to be a great class, and a tough one. It uses the newest edition of a book I used for my MBA, which helps me and the students. But you know, something seems to be missing. I’m trying to figure out where I’m going to work in social media.

The answer? Probably everywhere.

It has influences in a lot of places. It has changed the process of economic exchange. The digital domain has virtually eliminated hard money, and I’m seeing a lot more barter these days, as well, particularly among social media mavens who can add value to each others goods and services.

Market research has not yet completely changed in methodology, and the statistical concepts remain sound. But what about the concepts from Surowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds? If ever there were concepts suited to the digital domain and social media it’s market research and crowdsourcing.

Segmentation has become ever more important, and more interesting as customers self-segment on social media. It has, however, become easier to identify your lightning-rod customer and your brand ambassador.

What’s going to be difficult is teaching about advertising. I know this text – it’s all about traditional advertising models. I’m curious to see if it even mentions social media in this latest edition. Somehow, I doubt it.

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Of the four P’s, promotion may have been changed most by Web 2.0… or has it, really?

If you’re on social media, think about the posts, status updates, tweets, and other media that you receive from businesses. The majority of them are pretty blatantly ads. They’re designed to do what advertising and promotional activities traditionally do – create brand equity, create loyalty, create conversions, and drive sales.

Social media mavens talk about creating a community. Sure, you’re creating a community. But really, what is a community? It’s loyal customers and people potentially interested in doing business with you. Sounds like a loyalty program, combined with some basic promotion, to me.

By the way, none of this diminishes the value of Web 2.0 constructs. These are valuable channels that create really high return on investment for our clients and others. The point, however, is this – you can’t go into these ignoring basic marketing constructs.

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