How marketers can make sense of the web

Roderick, who is a platform strategy advisor, opened up by asking marketers to consider the technology trends as they are changing around us. For example:

Devices: These are not just computers, but also gaming consoles and cellphones. Stay aware of the fact that not everyone has access to the computer, but most have some access to a phone.

Touchpoints: There are plenty of them (web, TV, printed media, etc) and it is important to put yourself in the shoes of the consumer. It's also important that all touchpoints tell a connected story. Marketers no longer have the luxury of an isolated message, using a chosen medium.

Technology stack: Marketers can no longer just focus on audience reach metrics and touchpoints. Now, design and development, analytics and the overall infrastructure is just as vital. At the end of the day, marketing makes IT responsible for reporting of very important data, and marketers should be on good terms with the IT departments to make sure they are mining as much of the relevant data as possible.

Roderick then went on to talk about the impact of social influence marketing (a term coined by one of Microsoft's companies). For example, referrals to a website are:

• 2-4 times more likely to visit the site,
  
• eight times more likely to purchase on the site,
  
• spend 30% more

than a “cold turkey” user.

In other words: don't underestimate the impact of people around us.

Social influence marketing

The 10 top trends in social influence marketing:

1. Social media will result in more influence
   
2. Focus will shift to influencers
   
3. Top-down branding will continue to lose effectiveness
   
4. Social advertising will grow
   
5. Portable social graph will fuel marketing innovation
   
6. Not just friends, but friendsters (friends of friends, for example) will start to matter
   
7. Social influence research will become more important than social measurement
   
8. Marketers will organise around social influence marketing
   
9. The intranet will join the web.
   
10. Your CEO will join Facebook (if s/he is not there already)

Also, when creating the online message, you should keep the “Social Technographics Ladder” in mind. This defines what type of users are accessing your content, and how they are interacting with it. You should make sure that you cater for all of them.

• Creators: bloggers, video, articles
  
• Critics: rate, review your content
  
• Collectors: tag, create rss feeds, vote for sites online
  
• Joiners: have profiles
  
• Spectators: read, watch, listen, read ratings
  
• Inactives

It is important to abandon old mindsets, and apply new ways of interacting with your customers. For example:

• Researching now turns to Listening
  
• Marketing turns to Talking (two way conversations)
  
• Sales turn to Energising (other people who are excited about your product)
  
• Support turns to Supporting (enabling customers to support each other)
  
• Development turns to Embracing (customers work together to improve your products)

The most important thing to do is acknowledge that online social media is here to stay, and to learn to embrace by staying agile and proactive.

• Bizcommunity.com is a media partner for The Marketing Show.