Then Web 2.0 crashed on our shores a few years ago, washing in social media and revolutionary web platforms like Facebook and Hulu.com. What’s interesting about this shift is the audience social media created. Techies, artists, writers, housewives, students, innovative business leaders, anyone with an opinion and others looking for connections beyond their daily toil flocked to Vox, Facebook, Twitter, Plaxo, Linked In, and more. They formed communities, groups, relationships, and trust arising from dialogue among one another in ways not imaginable by marketers in the past. It’s weird, it’s wonderful and it’s happening now.

The reality is that this new media, a term I use to describe the aggregate of social media and new web offerings, has disrupted marketing. For example, blogging news sites like the Huffington Post changed the way public relations is conducted. Social utilities like Facebook allow businesses to easily run ads and changes the way ad agencies can reach target audiences, while social media platforms like Vox, where people from tight, trusted neighborhoods converse about everything from their parents divorce to whether to purchase a VW or a BMW…changed web marketing as we knew it.

The traditional paradigm of engaging customers based on creating awareness, to create interest, which leads to a desire that prompts a consumer to purchase has been replaced by a new model that has more steps, but, paradoxically is more immediate and happens virtually 24/7.

In the new media model consumers take different steps purchasing. We call it the “Five R’s”;

• Referral – A potential customer can easily be referred to your product or service by a friend or neighbor from their social network, and often the customer has never met the friend or even know their real name.
• Research – Based on their online buddy’s referral (or not), they can research your brand on Google, Yahoo, or Bing. Conversely, you must now research where they are, what sites they travel, and what they have to say about your brand to be effective in reaching them.
• Relationship – In doing so they may develop relationships with other brand users and further discuss brand attributes. They are developing a now have a relationship with your brand and are arriving at the purchase decision.
• Reliability – Now the ball is in your court, and you must easily, seamlessly capture the purchase, facilitate the delivery, and follow up with customer service. This is more and more becoming what is known as the annoying ‘pile-on’ method, which often erodes your credibility. Comcast will drive you nuts with this approach after a botched service implementation.
• Responsiveness – Being responsive to your customers needs in a reliable manner is most important. Drop the ball on this and immediately negative responses will begin to emerge on the very sites you are searching for customers. Two great examples of doing this right are Zappos and Amazon.

With the current wave washing away the way marketing has been conducted in the past, which is often last month in new media time, the question often posed by clients is: What’s a marketer to do? The answer is innovate. As the late great Hunter S. Thompson once quipped, “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” Marketers need to look the weirdness of social media in the eye and turn social media pro. They need to think like those they wish to engage and go where they are; and do so with the credibility and authenticity the defines the trust that hinges the culture of the new media together. If you’re a CEO you will get much more mileage out your blog or tweets if you pen them yourself, even if you are not a witty communicator like Tony Hsieh of Zappos. The medium is the message, and authenticity rules the message.

The way to ride this wave is to embrace change, innovate, and partner with those who are riding it with knowledge of the waters they navigate and an eye on the future. After all, in new media time, it will soon be the last wave.

I began to think about some misconceptions regarding social network marketing and email marketing and how they might be thought of as spam. I thought I’d take a moment to clear that up for you – free of charge!

First of all, let’s talk email marketing. There are pretty strict laws in place about who you can and cannot contact with email. People have to opt-in to an email list before receiving contact. This is contrary to traditional direct mail marketing, where it’s standard practice to mail-bomb an entire neighborhood unsolicited. So, if people are asking for it, how can it be considered spam?

Secondly, social media marketing is anything but spam. Again, people choose who they want to hear from. Not only that, but companies that execute a smart social marketing plan can actually make it fun (say it with me: fun) to hear from them. The result is that sometimes people add certain profiles to their friends lists to appear cool, kitschy or irreverant. For instance, someone might add Family Guy, Pepsi, and Marvel Comics to their web 2.0 circle just for kicks. I’ve never seen anyone do that with spam!

Social marketing and email marketing campaigns, when well executed, are fun, interesting, entertaining, and provide value to fans. Still, even if it’s done poorly I don’t know that there is a case you can point to and call spam.

Businesses are understandably concerned with how they invest their advertising dollars, especially in an economy where companies have cut costs by letting their marketing budgets shrivel like a salt-covered slug. As a result, marketing and advertising directors have to show that the money they do have is getting them real, measurable results and high ROI.

There are enough examples out there of businesses who have in fact come up with ways to measure the effectiveness in concrete, quantifiable terms. Perhaps the most prominent example is provided to us by Dell Computers, who reportedly have generated $3 millon in sales through Twitter. Dell has actually created proprietary software to measure very precisely the effectiveness of their Twitter presence, allowing them to confidently disclose such figures.

Of course, not everyone has the resources to build a proprietary analytic tool, but that doesn’t mean it’s time to throw in the towel. You might be able to measure the success of a well-implemented social media marketing campaign by tracking spikes in web traffic before, during, and after various points during the campaign. Also, you can offer promotions specifically through Twitter or Facebook and track the number of orders that come in that way.

Furthermore, even if you can’t asses the value of every click, the amount of brand equity built in every page view, or the likeliness that a Facebook fan will buy your product or service, you can take comfort in the fact that social media marketing is extremely cost-effective in nature. Some companies actually hire a full-time social marketing expert to drive such efforts, while others look to social media and web marketing specialists to create and monitor anything from a blog page to full-fledged, cross-channel online ad campaigns. If you play your cards right, you can get the right services for a great price, meaning you don’t necessarily need to plop down the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or more on your social marketing campaign. Yet, social marketing can reach as many if not more people, in a more meaningful and impactful way than many traditional marketing methods.

Finally, there is the copycat theory. As much as we strive to make business decisions that stress innovation, forward thinking, and unique strategy, it’s no secret that once one company does something to successfully improve itself, others will follow in its footsteps. Keeping that in mind, why not follow the footsteps of CNN, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Coca Cola, The Cleveland Cavaliers, and many other major organizations by hopping on into the social media pool. The water is fine, jump right in! The web is chock full of articles discussing how companies large and small alike have found that using web 2.0 tools to create personal, meaningful and direct dialogue with their customers has improved their business and made them more recognizable. If that isn’t measurable proof, I don’t know what is!

Leading Bay Area institutions like UC Santa Cruz and University of San Francisco offer certificate programs in marketing geared towards new media and web marketing studies. One has to wonder about the validity of such programs. After all, can a college classroom really keep up with the rapidly changing world of new media and social media marketing? And furthermore, aren’t these things driven experientially much more so than academically?

Those are good questions indeed. I am proud of myself for asking them. 

My colleague and I disagree on this. My thinking is that college courses offer a structured course of study, where one can make connections and apply their coursework to the real world. Taking college classes in web marketing might allow you to learn from others in the industry (and related industries) about things you hadn’t even thought of. Plus, it’s one more thing to pad a resume. My colleague, however, believes that the industry changes too quickly to be adequately covered in a classroom setting. He also argues that many people in marketing and especially web marketing don’t have a formal marketing education, instead relying on real-life knowledge and trial-by-fire experience, and therefore an education in web marketing is futile. 

What are your thoughts? Perhaps I should take a few classes and double my fees?