I've admired the folks over at Razorfish for some time... yep, I wish I could be just like them (even though I'm not too keen on how slow their web site loads). They do an excellent job of quantitatively studying the Internet and online community building and -- even better! -- they share a great deal of data for free.

Case in point: The 2009 Digital Outlook Report. CEO Clark Kokich begins with this observation:

I spent the first 30 years of my advertising career focused on saying things. What do we need to say to persuade people to buy our product or service? How do we say it in a unique and memorable way? Where do we say it? How much will it cost to say it? How do we measure consumer reactions to the things we say to them?

Sounds like he's one of us Baby Boomers. That's how I was taught to do marketing. But, the times, they are have been changing. So I totally get what Clark's saying. He continues:

Now, after 10 years in the digital space, I find myself spending my time talking to clients about building things.

He then describes how advertisers and marketers are changing their focus to helping clients create experiences and interactions and connections -- the kinds of things that truly build brands. I browsed through the report till I found what I was really looking for: Trends in Social Influence Marketing, which was written by VP and Global Social Media Lead Shiv Singh. You may have seen the Top 10 trends in social influence marketing quoted by others.... so I decided to do my own interpretation:

1.  Consumers will pay more attention to social influencers, such as bloggers and referral sites, than traditional advertising.
2. The "sneezers" and influencers will have be in the spotlight.
3. Brand managers will finally realize that consumers are the ones who drive the brand identity. (And it'll be about time.)
4. Social advertising will mature -- which I hope means that they will get smarter about "programmed" advertising and stop putting kid-focused ads on sites simply because moms congregate there.
5. The ability to share information between sites like Facebook and Twitter and other social sites will be easier -- and I hope we'll have the ability to customize privacy settings and determine what's shared with whom.
6. We'll care more about our extended network of friends, not just close friends, in our online communities.
7. Research will focus more on meaningful results, not just counts of web hits and contacts. And what are meaningful results? Authentic referrals, repeat sales, and probably some kind of measure of social interaction.
8. Social influence marketing will be the center of marketing activity, not just an afterthought.
9. The barrier between intranets and the World Wide Web will disappear.
10. The boss will climb down from the ivory tower and participate.

Razorfish will review the list in six months, then at the end of the year to see how well their crystal ball works.  Of course, this list is only a small portion of the report. I'm studying the rest to see what I can apply and share. For now, I'm just letting it simmer....

I've been reading a lot of Seth Godin's blog these days. For all of the talk about new trends in marketing, especially Internet marketing, Seth's messages provide a consistent foundation that is becoming more and more helpful to me... which is why what I'm going to say next may sound odd. I think Seth missed a key point in today's blog posting titled "Is viral marketing the same as word of mouth?" While I'm hardly qualified to disagree with Seth, I think he omitted why word of mouth and viral marketing are different. Seth says:

Word of mouth is a decaying function. A marketer does something and a consumer tells five or ten friends. And that's it. It amplifies the marketing action and then fades, usually quickly. ... Viral marketing is a compounding function. A marketer does something and then a consumer tells five or ten people. Then then they tell five or ten people. And it repeats. And grows and grows. Like a virus spreading through a population. The marketer doesn't have to actually do anything else. (They can help by making it easier for the word to spread, but in the classic examples, the marketer is out of the loop.) Read more >