I was having a spirited debate with my VP of Marketing about a month ago. His premise and conclusion amounted to the following — that throughout the history of the world, the role of Marketing has never changed. It has seen technologies come and go, and yet its mission has never changed — to deliver messages to the marketplace.
His argument didn’t settle too well with me, because Social Media adds some new wrinkles into the traditional marketing role. The difference is that the Read/Write Web has armed the recipients with a power to react, to put their own spin on, and the ability to CHANGE the message — AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT!
In the past, marketeers would “target” passive markets and shoot messages at them. Today, those targets aren’t passive. Armed with the Read/Write web, they have the ability to shoot back.
Therefore, not only must your marketing department create, deliver and measure the results of its messages, but the New Marketeer must monitor and react to the morphing of those messages. Such reactions may take the form of better messaging, feedback to R&D, or ideas for whole new product lines that your company never could have conceived in the first place.
