It's amazing how many companies are still using "old school" marketing. David Meerman Scott explains today's marketing in Web Ink Now: Social media marketing explained in 61 words. It's a long video but the first few minutes are key:
You can buy attention (with advertising); You can beg for attention from the media (with PR); You can bug people one at a time to get attention (with direct sales). Or you can earn attention by creating something interesting and valuable and then publishing it online for free: a YouTube video, a blog, a research report, photos, a Twitter stream, an ebook, a Facebook page.
Here's the video of David speaking at BMA 2009:
What a great intro! Yet, alas, in our annual product management survey, we learned that 43% of technology companies have no social media component in their marketing plans and only 7% consider it a major element.
As we go into 2010, all marketers should be exploring how social media defines the marketing plan. Instead of talking about SEO and other web "tricks," today's marketer should embrace the "new rules" by developing real content that generates inbound links--which is what the search engines really love.
