Social Networking -- Family style

Tonight, for the first time in many years, I decided to miss the annual Christmas dinner at the Greater Ottawa Home Builders' Association. This is the most important dinner meeting of the year, but it clashed with the first day of Chanukah. Even with the clash, I would have gone to the GOHBA dinner, if Daniel Smith and Ken Lancastle were not there. But with our local sales representative and editor in the room, I feared I would have spent much of my time engaging in internal "shop talk" conversations with the employees -- discouraging them from meeting and connecting with other GOHBA members.

In any case, my night off turned into something very different when I joined in a conversation with our neighbour, a senior marketing executive, and my cousin, a first year university student -- and the laptop I'm using to write this blog. The subject: Facebook and Social Networking, a topic close to my heart, as I prepare to research and write an article for The SMPS Marketer.

The marketing executive had just been to Toronto to learn more about Facebook and the student showed me some of the resources she uses to connect with her friends. My neighbour loaned me: Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business by Larry Weber, and especially pointed out a two page section that revealed the differences between traditional and new-era social marketing. Ultimately, the main point here is that publishers no longer have the gatekeeper power they formerly held -- the entire process is becoming much more 'democratic' and fluid; and marketers must really be conscious about the accelerated impact of word-of-mouth messages in the new era.

I'm sure glad (business wise) I decided to stay home with the family tonight.