And while the currency that marketers trade is still emotion, the relationship dynamics between brands and their customers has dramatically changed. Advertising Books Brands Capitalism Causes Community Consumers Economy Facebook Future GENERAL Globalization Leadership Optimism Purpose Social Entrepreneurship Social media Social Networking Technology Thought leadership Values Viral Cause marketing consumer activism David Jones social business social good SOPA Who Cares WinsNo book could be more important or timely than Who Cares Wins by David Jones of Havas Media.  MORE >>

The shift in focus is the most powerful revolution going on in marketing today. Wake up your inner entrepreneur and look at the need you are filling and what your target market wants. As we marketers try to stand out in this pea soup of content who’s to say anything is off limits. We marketers have talked about “brand personality&# for years, so it’s time for brands to act like we had one. There’s no doubt it will become the  social media marketing benchmark of the future as Mashable suggests. www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE. MORE >>

Define your purpose: This can take the form of a mission statement, which is a few paragraphs that articulate for leadership, employees, and customers exactly what a company stands for and the core values that inform its products, services, and marketing. So before considering what marketing a brand should do, always revisit the story you tell and re-frame it in a way that allows you to build a community based on shared values. Brands Future Social media Values branding Marketing seminar We FirstForgo Silos: Customer engagement using social media is a delicate balance. MORE >>

And report after report by the likes of leading cause marketer Cone Inc. www.youtube.com/watch?v=tklFJzRLxyU. tklFJzRLxyU. Sometimes the transformative effects of social media need to be seen to be believed. Yet often they don’t look like a P&L sheet or metrics report. Sometimes the most powerful demonstration of what social media can achieve is best read on the faces of people. ‘Help Portrait’ launched by Jeremy Cowart is one such example. It was a simple idea of taking some one’s portrait to improve their self-esteem that grew into a movement. MORE >>

Only when the listener(s) own the tellers’ story and make it theirs, will they market it for you. ?   Social media is easily mistaken as today’s shiny squirrel rather than yet another tool in our arsenal to connect emotionally around shared values through powerful storytelling. When it comes to effective storytelling, there is probably no better expert than Peter Gube r. Peter has written a book called Tell to Win that lays out the critical first principles of purposeful storytelling that are too often overlooked in social media strategies and commentaries today. MORE >>