Power to the people! Social computing and marketing meet!

There were some important posts (here and here) on Mico Persuasion last week that outline the sources of upheaval in the marketing world. That is, traditional, institutional-controlled marketing is becoming marginalized by customers who wield enormous power thanks to new social technologies.

The posts reference a Forrester report that I haven't purchased, but the posts contain illustrative excerpts from the report that do a good job of summarizing the major points. You may also want to look at the TrackBacks and comments on the posts as some are fairly useful. The bottom line is that since customers are bombarded by too much "stuff" in the form of marketing messages, they've devised their own ways of filtering through it all by relying on social networks and their peers and colleagues. This is the BIG trend in marketing that I have discussed and will continue to discuss as it's crucial that librarians work out new marketing strategies given these new realities.

Heck, even Google, not known for its successes with social communities, is giving new strategies a try with its partnership with Nike and their joint soccer social network called Joga.

There will be more on this topic to come!