Originally posted on the Eggblogg, Dec 10th 2008.

This week I was in Eastbourne talking to a group of local businessfolks, members of the University of Brighton’s excellent ProfitNet learning network. Originally I’d been asked to talk about ‘viral marketing’, to which my first question was ‘what do they mean by that?’

‘How do we get people to pass on our marketing messages?” they replied. ‘How do we create a viral campaign? How do we use Facebook etc for business?’

I always squirm at the phrase ‘viral marketing’. Apart from the fact that it sounds like something awful (who wants to catch a virus?) it also seems so very outdated. A typical combative marketing term from the old days.

Of course, what these good people needed to know about was social media – the social web. Big topic, and not much in the way of received wisdom yet, but a huge amount of expert opinion and enthusiastic discussion. I like to think I keep abreast of this, and yet researching for this presentation was enlightening – I learned a lot and actually came away with renewed excitement and energy.

With only 45 minutes I wasn’t going to be able to talk in depth about the myriad social media tools, websites, and communities, although I did tell them of a few examples from this amazing list.

But I wanted to give the audience one thing to take away, if they forgot everything else, and that turned out to be this:

The social web is about sharing.

Sounds simple, perhaps too simple if you’re trying to get your head round social media marketing. But it’s just this: people don’t pass on marketing messages, they pass on stuff that they think their friends and contacts will enjoy or find interesting.

Companies wanting to market themselves in this arena need stuff (content) that people actually want. That could be…

Stuff that helps people in their jobs or day to day lives.
Stuff that informs and educates.
Stuff that entertains.
Stuff that people will want to share with others.

But it also means…

Stuff that enables sharing of other stuff with others.
Stuff that enables people to create stuff for others to share.

I think the last two are what really get to the heart of the social web. People are creative. We want the tools to do it ourselves, the power to take control, the choice to do things our own way, to mix things up, to mess things up.

Surely marketers who embrace this turnaround in power, who welcome the audience as active collaborator (rather than a passive ‘target’ to be ‘marketed at’) will see the best results long term.