Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business

Chapter 3. Making the Transition to the Social Web (First Change Your Marketing Mindset)

The future is here. Remember how national publications, national radio, and national television led to the rise of mass marketing? That was the first period of marketing. The second period—which is just about over—saw the rise of direct marketing through direct mail, telemarketing, and catalogs. This is hardly new news.

Now we’re in the third period of marketing, the era of the social web. Your customers (and potential customers) are more in control of what they read, hear, and watch. And not only do they want to talk to other people, they want you—the marketer—to listen to them. It’s time to embrace this new reality. But how do you make the transition from the old marketing to the new marketing of the social web?

The first thing you have to do is change your marketing mindset (see Table 3.1). Then you’ll be in a good position to change your approach to brand equity, segmentation, targeting, communication, content, virality, reviews, the role of advertisers and publishers, the hierarchy of information, and—inevitably—payment.

Table 3.1. Old Marketing versus New Marketing

Components	Old Marketing	New Marketing
Marketing mindset	Use one-way, one-sided communication to tell brand story.	Nurture dialogue and relationships; be more transparent, earn trust, build credibility.
Brand equity	Brand recall is holy grail.	Brand value is determined by customers: How likely are customers to highly recommend the good ...