The future of social marketing
Business networking expert Penny Power, who has recently published Know Me, Like Me, Follow Me: What Online Social Networking Means for You and Your Business, explains what our kids can teach us about marketing strategy:
When I look at my three children, who are now teenagers or approaching teen years, and I look at the way that they’re using social networks, it is so inspiring and it gives me so much hope for the future. Because they’re using social networks as fun, as connecting randomly with people, as embracing strangers that they meet on holidays and tennis camps, staying in touch with them. They don’t have to consider alumni networks. They’re just building social capital by building friends. And they’re not trying to achieve something from it. It’s all unconditional giving, support. So when Hannah or Ross or TJ get updates on their Blackberry because a friend has passed an exam or is nervous about an exam or has lost something or is selling an iPod off their Facebook status or whatever it is, it’s just a friend doing it. And that friend has already built trust.
And so I think that we can learn a lot from the younger generation. I’m very empowered by the younger generation, because they know that being liked and being trusted is more important than just being great at what they do. And they’re not broadcasting stuff. They’re sharing their vulnerabilities and their weaknesses with one another. They’re just building real friends. They’re just being open with one another, randomly embracing people and supporting each other. So when they go into the business world, they might have 2,000 contacts by the time they go into business who know their values, know what they stand for, know what they like, know their history. And those 2,000 people are going to get 2,000 jobs. And there is no way that they’re going to be looking up the yellow pages or even googling for a skill set. They’ll be getting into their network and asking who can I trust to do something for me, anywhere in the world. And we can learn a lot from that about how to build our networks.
