Lots of good thinking out there on how referrals are becoming the new filters that sort out the good stuff from the “90% of everything that’s crud.” (Chris Anderson, The Long Tail) It’s not so much the wisdom of crowds (remember Howard Dean?) but the “nichebusters” that break to daylight and someone casually gives you a rendezvous with greatness. That’s the power of social media, and why it is so important to the future of search marketing. Even for B2B. Thinking future perfect, we are already becoming a social media agency, courtesy of our teaming with leaders like Tom Parish, Cynthia Baker and Deltina Hay. (These would be the people you would HOPE to have in your network!)

As marketers who are in the business of helping people find what they are looking for, it’s nice to know that we are both helpful and contributors to the bottom line for our clients. It’s so much better than being in advertising and trying to figure out how to persuade someone that one brand is better than any other option, just because of the cool person who is using it in our TV ad! (for a cool $250K)

I love this quote because it can explain to your CEO why nobody ever searches on your tagline:

“Marketers now have to compete with the conversations customers are having with one another about the products they buy. None of those conversations consists of customers repeating the same three word phrases over and over. This is one of the main drivers for (the market’s) interest in “customer-generated media”: Not only are customers more credible—a 2006 study by Edelman PR showed that customers think the most trustworthy source of information about a company is “a person like me”—they’re also more interesting. Customers are now “mashing up” marketing materials—re-editing them into parodies, mixing them up with totally inappropriate soundtracks—turning commercials back against their creators and in the process making them far more interesting than they were originally. Think of it as customers’ revenge for all those years of being treated like simpletons.”

The truth is that advertising stopped being smart and tried to win by being clever, and fell away from relevance. As David Ogilvy said, the consumer isn’t stupid, she’s your wife. For this next gen of search marketers, the lesson should be clear: don’t try to use tricks to outsmart Google, because in the long term, you will never win. Talk to the people! Open up and let them in…they are smart enough to see through corporate speak, and they ARE talking about you behind your back. If you are honest, responsive and reliable, that will be your reputation. My view? You don’t really manage your reputation–you earn it every day.