1. The document discusses the future of social media and brands. It argues that the role of brands in the age of industrial marketing no longer exists as attention is now scarce, media is abundant, and tools allow avoiding advertising. 2. Brands should embrace failure, join conversations rather than broadcast messages, and focus on being useful and interesting rather than seeking conversions. 3. The key is for brands to participate in conversations, listen to potential customers, and provide customer service rather than see people as demographic sectors.

1. The Future of Social Media
Graeme Wood
http://graewood.blogspot.com/
1

2. What I’m not going to talk about...
1

3. …or…
3

4. What I am going to talk about
4

5. What is a brand?
5

6. We are social animals
Michael Middleton – Flickr 2008
6

7. Industrial Marketing
7

8. The production line
Awareness Interest Desire Action Consumption
8

9. And how did that work?
9

10. And did we?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/menlo/936175848/11
10

11. Not this….
11

12. What has changed?
Economics: The science which studies human
behaviour as a relationship between ends and
scarce means which have alternative uses
Lionel Robbins
The Nature and Significance of Economic Science (1932)
12

13. What will happen next?
13

14. Scarcity and Abundance
14

15. What will a brand be?
Source: UK Brand Tags
15

16. Recommendation and Reputation
16

17. Markets are conversations.
Conversations among human beings
sound human. They are conducted in a
human voice.
Markets consist of human beings, not
demographic sectors.
The Cluetrain Manifesto, 1999
quot;We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and
two
underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten.quot;
Bill Gates, 2008
17

18. Intelligence Development
18 http://visualgadgets.blogspot.com/2008/06/graphs-and-networks.html

19. Information systems
19

20. Opportunities not to see
20

21. What is technology
21

22. What will media look like?
22

23. THE STAGE
Message broadcast
at audience
Scale = audience = where the eyeballs have gone
23 David Cushman FasterFuture.blogspot.com

24. They aren’t looking
at The Stage.
They are looking
at each other
Scale = lots of communities of purpose = where the eyeballs are focused
24 David Cushman FasterFuture.blogspot.com

25. But what does all this mean?
25

26. Rampant Disintermediation
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=7xAA71Ssids
26

27. The role of a brand in the age of industrial
marketing no longer exists
Attention is scarce and expensive.
Media is not
We already have tools to avoid advertising
They will increase exponentially
27

28. What to do about it
People haven’t changed
We are a mass medium
Markets are conversations
Be part of the conversation
Embrace failure
JOIN IN
28

29. People haven’t changed
Tell me and I’ll forget
Show me and I’ll remember
Involve me and I’ll understand
29

30. We are all individuals
30

31. Light lots of fires
31

32. We don’t ignore advertising
32

33. Fail Little & Often
quot;..our company's success rate runs between 50
and 60 percent. About half of our new
products succeed. That's as high as we want
the success rate to be. If we try to make it
any higher, we'll be tempted to err on the side
of caution”
A.G. Latley – CEO, Procter & Gamble
33

34. We are the eighth mass media
34

35. What about Content?
Didn’t that used to be king?
35

36. Something to talk about
Content isn't king.. If I sent you to a desert island and
gave you the choice of taking your friends or your movies,
you'd choose your friends -- if you chose the movies,
king.
we'd call you a sociopath. Conversation is king
Content is just something to talk about
Cory Doctorow
36

37. This isn’t a new idea……
37

38. How to be talked about
38

39. Commitment not campaigning
39

40. Piracy is just another competitor
40

41. Why so serious?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Colorful_Clown.jpg11
40

42. Communication = Dialogue
LISTEN
http://www.flickr.com/photos/beebe_library/3042545758/
Listen to the customers you don’t have – there are far more of them
Peter Drucker
41

43. Marketing is customer service
42

44. We are what we share
43

45. Experiences will always be scarce
Abundant Scarce
ENABLE
You
r ad
her
e
44

46. So what should brands do?
Be useful
+
Be interesting
45

47. Conversation not conversion
46

48. Join in
You have to be part of the conversation
in order to advise clients on it
47

49. Learn from others
Faris Yakob (McCann Erickson) David Cushman (Brando Digital)
Talent Imitates, Genius Steals Faster Future
Rohit Bhargava (Ogilvy 360) Mark Earls
Influential Marketing Herd
Kevin Kelly Paul Isakson (space150)
The Technium Paulisakson.com
Neil Perkin (IPC) Alan Moore (SMLXL)
Only Dead Fish Communities Dominate Brands
Matt Mason Justin Billingsley (Orange)
The Pirate’s Dilemma The Feed
Andy Hobsbawn (agency.com) Noah Brier (Barbarian Group)
Do the Green Thing Noahbrier.com
48

50. Carry on the conversation….
Graeme Wood
http://graewood.blogspot.com/
49