Facebook’s Marketing 2.0 group had a nice Q&A with David Weinberger on a few months ago. There was some discussion about David’s book and the tagging possibilities that are out there but not getting utilized. Here’s some chicken scratch ideas I collected during the Q&A:
- Markets are conversations
- Marketing doesn’t have to be a conversation
- The future of the internet is in jeopardy due to controlling forces
- Companies are co-creating products with their customers much more than they used to and this benefits everyone.
- Conversation can be undermined by companies/entities paying people to say good things about them. – The conversation has to be transparent.
- The idea of advocacy marketing is coming about, there’s nothing wrong with that as long as everyone is honest about where they are coming from: who is the hired gun?
- Customers have learned to trust each other more than they trust the business.
3 Things to Work On:
- Specifications (the stats, the metadata, the bones of the product, the facts, stuff that you can be sued for)
- Advocacy Marketing (blogging, forums, lacing up the gloves and stating your case)
- Marketing Materials (is looking phonier and phonier: the challenge for marketers is to improve this)
Other notes:
- Marketing that is going to sound simplified is going to sound insulting.
- Marketers need to get as complex and interesting as the subject matter.
- Simplicity still has value: What is your product? What is your company? This basic message should be simple
- “Control of the message”: what’s left of the idea if someone was to take control of it? Marketing is _not_ in the control business, that’s a way to alienate your customers. Marketing/the Company should be a source of ideas.
- What if there was no marketing? Your employees are already talking, that’s a form of marketing and a potential area of focus.
