First off… a side note… If you are not reading Convince & Convert by Jason Baer you should be. He always gets me thinking and brainstorming on new methods and ideas to marketing through social media.

If you were to think back to the days of (what we will call) old-school marketing…the days where big money won and the more you broadcasted the higher the return…it can be debated that the marketing arm of many companies ran much like a machine. Yes, there was some creative thought process involved but the communication model was more machine-like than we would care to admit.

They (the machines) started churning out hundreds of thousands of ideas in order to plaster on our minds the benefits of their products and services. More often than not, it worked.

In the age of the Internet, open collaboration, and social media the machine is slowly dying and giving way to a more sophisticated school of thought. The customer is now crafting the message of brands. The customer has castrated the machine of marketing and created a new form of communication.

In the words of Jason, social media is now at the forefront of the customer experience. The thoughts and ideas of brands are no longer crafted in the board room (which many people would like to believe) but created in our living rooms, restaurants, gathering places, and keyboards.

As a business owner it is up to you to listen to this message. To never ignore the potential that social media can have on your brand and welcome the unison of voices which are the PEOPLE who love your product… and..

the people who do not.

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