The New Frontier of Marketing

April 5, 2012

Although most of the basic strategies of marketing hold true in the strange new world of social networking, companies may find ways to go far beyond the usual in the realm of Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and more. In many ways the tools that enable Facebook, for example, to build affinity groups of consumers or even political movement can greatly alter the world of marketing.

With the power of social networking to enable deeper relationships some cutting edge companies are finding ways to engage customers like never before. There are wonderful examples of companies engaging customers in activities such as organized sharing of information and ideas or even creating sites to stories of their use of products and services. These new gathering places for communities can even extend to discussions with associates by providing them a place for enhanced discussion and team building.

Some interesting examples of companies employing the power of creation can be found in Part 4 of the new study on social networking from the Coca‑Cola Retailing Research Council of North America. Readers can download all four parts of the study at www.ccrrc.org.

Part 4 demonstrates how companies can both listen and understand customer concerns and issues; can participate in the discussion shoppers have about products and services; and even can create new communities and reasons to gather. The sum of this activity, in the words of one council member, can help a company build a strong market niche than ever.

Michael Sansolo

Research Director

Coca‑Cola Retailing Research Council of North America