Marketing in the Era of Social Media
While we are still in the early stages of the Social Media Revolution the roadmap to the future is becoming clearer every day. The social web is rapidly becoming the functional base for most people's daily interaction with web content. That content is now qualified and validated by being shared and channeled across relationships of trust between friends and acquaintances. Product decisions will increasingly be mediated by the authentic testimony of friends on the social network, regardless of whether the brands in question want to participate in the conversation. Smart brands will learn to get involved in these conversations and contribute to a growing consumer awareness of the real issues involved in making informed decisions about products and services, or they will be marginalized. In ways that we have not seen since the advent of television and radio, social conversations have become more important than mass marketing claims.
Jeremiah Owyang at Forrester Research wrote a prescient blog piece about "The Future of the Social Web: In Five Eras" exactly a year ago this week. It bears reading again to plot our progress. It seems to me that we're right on track.
The Five Eras of the Social Web: 1) Era of Social Relationships: People connect to others and share 2) Era of Social Functionality: Social networks become like operating system 3) Era of Social Colonization: Every experience can now be social 4) Era of Social Context: Personalized and accurate content 5) Era of Social Commerce: Communities define future products and services
