Data is Free

There has been a ton written about what I'll call "Generative Marketing." What is it?

Generative marketing is when a brand opens itself up to feedback, interaction, and cultivation of its "tribe." What is a tribe? For a company a tribe is a group of customers who so identify with a product or service that their loyalty and enthusiasm can propel the company to new heights or new depths.

Paul Dunay makes a good point that traditional media is completely broken as a means of building a brand:

There is just too much noise out there to shout at people. No consumer brand has been built on the back of traditional media for a while now. TV certainly isn’t working for the creation of new consumer or B2B brands.

Which means your only option is to define your brand in a way that is open to a dialog and in a way that is narrow enough to start or tap into a “movement”.

The goal for marketers is to harness the power of social marketing to reach its tribe directly. Twitter, Facebook, and other social marketing tools permit brands (and even small companies) to reach their customers directly.

Seth Godwin's new book, Tribes, address this issue directly. Here a presentation he gave last October. I particularly like the message on one slide: Connect, Create Meaning, Make a Difference, Be Noticed, Matter, Be Missed