I’m currently enjoying a book entitled Now is Gone by Geoff Livingston. In this book, Livingston articulately brings to life much of what has been in my head as of late--and something I’ve been talking about with my colleagues as well.

Particularly: I’ve been thinking that social media marketing is the future of marketing--or as I called it in the title: relational marketing. I know I could get in some hot water for such a dogmatic claim; but hear me out.

By “Social media” I mean more than simply the tools of social media such as blogs, Facebook, Twitter etc. Rather, I am referring to something similar to Livingston’s definition:

“Social media...is the democratization and socialization of information as well as the tools to facilitate online conversations. To put it another way, it is the shift from one-way to two-way conversations.”

Marketing has long been seen as information distribution to your target audiences. We gather info, we (gently) shove it down the customer’s throat, and then we ask them to say thank you and hope they want seconds. I understand that’s a bit hyperbolic; but it does have some truth in it. For better or worse (I happen to think for better), that way of marketing is quickly dying. Livingston speaks to this by distinguishing “audiences” from “communities.” It may sound like he’s splitting hairs; but it actually constitutes an entire paradigm shift.

Picture the last movie you saw in the theater (hopefully it wasn’t Vantage Point). As part of the audience, what did you do? You watched and listened; you didn’t interact--and hopefully you didn’t talk. Your opinion had no bearing on the movie’s content as the movie was already edited and produced. Accordingly, you’re only job was to take it all in and perhaps afterwards give it two thumbs up or down.

What do communities do? They engage in dialogue. People in community shape one another. Their opinions and ideas influence those of the others around them.

To return to the movie analogy; as an audience member you have no say over the finished product. However, as part of the community who made the movie, you had complete say. You influenced, shaped and created the movie (and hopefully, it wasn’t Vantage Point).

Marketers no longer have the option of treating people like audiences because people no longer have to sit around and respectfully listen to their message. People have choices. With the democratization and socialization of information, why would I accept a final product that doesn’t work for me when I can go elsewhere and help build one? Why would I continue to watch TV commercials when I have TiVo? Why would I stay on your web site if I don’t like it? Why would I buy your product when I know there are 10 other better options for less money? Why would I listen to a canned message when I can speak directly with the creator?

As Livingston points out, marketers no longer have the option of not engaging in community dialogue. Dialogue is happening whether we like it or not. We can either close our eyes hope they’re saying good things about our products & company; or we can help shape the conversation through our participation--and in turn be shaped ourselves.

I finished eating a tasty morsel at Chipotle (three crispy tacos) and my buddy and I headed back to our cars. He was parked near me and had a little flyer on his windshield. I didn’t. The flyer—an advertisement from a local vendor for Sirius Satellite Radio—was only for Toyota Prius cars. Talk about targeting.

In advertising, there’s nothing worse than spending ad dollars on a group of people that simply don’t care about your product or service. Putting that flyer on my car (or every car in the parking garage), for example, would have been a complete waste of money.

The good news is that today, you can “toyota prius target” your customers online. Tools like AdWords allow you to advertise to those searching for answers (e.g., a Google query for “brooklyn dodgers baseball cap"). You can also focus those ad dollars on specific geographic regions, cities, or areas, otherwise know as geo-targeting. That means if you only do business and have customers in Fort Myers, FL, you can advertise solely within that city.

The story goes on too. You can drill down into analytics to see what paid visitors looked at after they came to your site. You can see if they took any specific actions, like downloading a brochure or filling out a contact form. And by the way, hopefully when potential customers visit your site, you have both kinds of SEO working for you.

I don’t think my friend actually acted on the flyer he received but he definitely looked at it. It is tough to get people to take action. But it is even harder to get someone to act on something that is totally irrelevant to them or worse, something they intensely dislike. Note to advertisers: I went to school in Boston but if you ever send me anything related to the Red Sox, I will boycott you forever.

Let’s say you’re the webmaster for your company’s web site and your boss has asked demanded you put something up to get people to start using a feature of the site that he thinks people aren’t using enough. Being the smart person you are, you know that the feature isn’t being used because it’s either a bad feature, poorly named or isn’t incorporated well enough into the site’s overall navigation. But, you’re also smart enough to realize that your boss doesn’t want to hear that stuff and you need to get something put up today. What do you do? Simple, just run a self-promo for the feature in a banner space. Think this doesn’t happen all the time on sites of all sizes? Check out any video page on YouTube. Ignore the Ted’s Tubes video, and look at the self-promo banner above it. Is running a banner promo like this optimal? Hardly, for a multitude of reasons. But, will it appease your boss? Absolutely, and it might not actually be as bad of an idea as you thought if you follow this one simple rule.

Utilize the Banner’s Context. Pay attention to where the banner will be placed on your site. It can make all the difference. Don’t just pull up Photoshop and start cranking out a sweet looking banner spot in your private 728 pixel by 90 pixel area. Think about where your banner will end up. Most of the time, designers have to create banners never knowing what the context will be. You have the luxury of knowing exactly what the site looks like that you’re designing for.

DISCLAIMER: The following suggestions are intended only for when you know and can control exactly where your banner will run. If you’re planning to run a self-promo banner across a variety of different sites or through an ad network, then you’ll have to create something more generic that works in all situations.

• Snap a screenshot of the page(s) that the banner will run on and pull it up in Photoshop.  Work right on top of it.

• Choose an appropriate background color. In most cases, it will make sense to match the background to the banner’s immediate surrounding, so it doesn’t look like a banner. Who wants their users to have “ad glaze” when learning about the site’s own features?

• Figure out where the banner is in relation to the feature you’re pointing out. If you’re lucky, it’s right next to it and you can extend the feature’s description directly into the banner space.

• Use lots of white space. Most of the time, your site will have a big ugly banner. Why not use this opportunity to unclutter that part of the site? Maybe people will even like the look without a banner there and realize the small revenue from that banner isn’t worth degrading the site.

• Don’t incorporate your logo unless you absolutely have to, especially if it’s anywhere near the actual site ID.

If this banner had loaded when you clicked the previous YouTube link, then you would have seen a great example of a self-promo banner taken out of context. Why have an arrow pointing down to a smaller/faded replica of the site’s navigation menu? Why not just have the arrow point up to the Channels tab? It’s right there! The designer clearly failed to take into account the context that the banner would end up in.

I noticed this sign in my suburban DC neighborhood.  I presume it refers to home additions, which around here generally means dropping at least $100K to add on to already high-priced homes.  For most people, their home is by far their most significant investment.

Does anyone just call a number posted on a pole and ask them to start working on a project of that magnitude anymore?  Trash removal, maybe, but home additions?  Wouldn’t a nice, short, memorable URL be handy in this case?

In a busy area like DC there’s lots of construction work, but also lots of competition.  The good contractors are overworked and struggle to be responsive to new inquiries—a problem since providing accurate price quotes is a time-consuming process that requires real expertise.  Filtering out the less valuable, less committed prospects is half the challenge.

Up-and-coming contractors might do great work, but without a book of testimonials and work samples, they struggle to find good opportunities and grow their businesses.

Doesn’t a solid web strategy make sense for both?  The established guys can use the web to route, filter, and respond to new sales inquiries.  The new guys can market their good work and make a solid first impression.  With the right search strategy on the front-end, both can attract lots of prospects.  With targeted email marketing on the backend, both could maintain top-of-mind awareness with their contacts.  Add solid analytics in the middle and they’ll have the insights needed into how the strategy is working to be able to make smart, cost-effective decisions on how to tweak the strategy.

That’s the great thing about web marketing right now: it’s established enough to drive legitimate business (in some cases, enormous amounts); but, the most effective strategies are still new enough to allow the more aggressive and savvy (not necessarily the more wealthy) companies to make big advances over their competition.

Who knows—maybe that sign was put up 10 years ago ... but, of course, back then additions.com was probably available.