This year’s thoughts on marketing next year – Marketing to networks

The reason I love working in digital is because it’s about people. That sounds contradictory to some I know, but it’s the truth. Technology has made us more social, smarter and more efficient than ever before. It’s given people the opportunity to do stuff rather than just consume stuff. And most importantly ignore brands that are being irrelevant and uninteresting. That’s been the reality over the last year, poor brands have been found out and the best ones flourished.

Which leads me to network theory (and the point of this post, sorry for the rambling prelude) is probably the most interesting thing I’ve been trying to get my head around in the last 12 months. I certainly don’t pretend to be an expert but it adds some rigor and science to a subject filled with a lot of hot air.

I also hate to break it to some people but social network theory has been around long before Mark Zuckerburg was a glint in his Dad’s eye and it’s also not about things that only happen online. Without getting too scientific I’ll just provide the main links for further reading in 2010, if you haven’t done so already in 09.

Malcolm ‘The Law of the few’ Gladwell vs Duncan ‘The big seed’ Watts

The Strength of Weak ties by Mark Granovetter

Social Object Theory – People share things that are interesting, sometimes that’s an ad

Power Laws and Black Swans

Sociograms – Helps map the flow of information and the strength of influence.

The difference between Sarnoff’s law, Metcalfe’s Law and Reed’s Law.

The maximum flow problem. This is something you can’t fix, but it’s good to know what we are doing wrong.

If you are on an International Flight with Qantas and can’t be bothered to read you all this you could watch this.

After reading, or watching all of this, you will probably find out a few things in time for next year.

- How ideas spread are just as important as where they are seen.
- Facebook and Twitter are the tools that networks of people use, not networks themselves.
- Social networks exist on and offline- All networks are different
- Media is connected and not complimentary to one another.
- Your research and the way you segment are probably flawed
- You are spending too much in paid media

Related posts…Part one and Part two

Tags: 2010, Facebook, Foursquare, Gladwell, Granovetter, Marketing, network theory, Sociograms, Strategy, Strength of weak ties, Twitter, Watts