It’s no secret that I’ve kicked back against the major social networks marketing so aggressively recently – that’s my choice. I left Facebook not only because of that, but because I was bored of the relentless repetitive posts and the lack of publishing awareness of the people I was connected to. I know that’s harsh, but even I don’t want to know everything my friends are up to, especially when the posts tend to be utopian when in reality life is not!

However, there is nothing like a little break of a couple of days by the sea in the heat to get you to think differently and to accept that the honeymoon period is over and that the whole social media sector is not just fragmenting, it’s rationalising itself. Therefore, I am going to make some changes to how I approach my social media activity. Some people will find that strange, annoying, baffling and stupid, but others will be thankful, according to the feedback I’ve been getting. Making the change was helped by several clients and people I’m connected to, who suggested it in 2011. They lauded me when I shared my thinking and said, “Thank God,” and, “At last.”

So how will I use each channel in future? 

Online replicates offline behaviour in a profusion of activity. In some cases it’s a remix, real time conversation, sharing information, gossip, pictures and videos. Hell we have been borrowing each other’s books for decades. And, whilst its no different, it can be so different!

In their short online life, social networks are going through a metamorphose already. They are becoming ad networks driven not by the user experience but by shareholder value. Its flipped on its head in the last two years. We do forget they are businesses, exposed to the same pressures as older, more traditional corporate brands. There is not much light between how a company like Coca Cola or Shell operates and Twitter. Certainly Facebook next year when it goes for its IPO. To be brazen, Flickr is in a far better position to produce what we, as users, will want from future social networking. Facebook’s ‘changes’ last week resembled a facelift that Cher would have been more than happy with.

It’s hard to actually identify a social network now that has motivations of purely a social business model not just revenue and profit. There is nothing wrong with that, but whilst aggregation and syndication go on, these online networks are frankly changing functionality and still looking too linear, too narrow and too silo like.  Yet brands are racing to them as if they hold the key to future sustainability. Well they might hold the key but not if its for the wrong lock. Its gullibility at its frightening extreme.

What has been the impact of individualism? Contemporary theory faces the challenge that a market society persists but the conditions for extracting a common morality of values from a possessive individualist culture do not. Research indicates that there have been several impacts:

1. State regulation – possessive market relations (capitalism) have so penetrated society and individuals that extensive state intervention is required to protect society and humans from themselves.

2. Reliance – since we must eat, have a roof over our heads and live an existence, whoever can provide us with those things, gets our support. The power and control rests with those who own capital and assets.

3. Contradiction – the origins of individualism were around freedom from other men. Ironically it has led to the opposite in many cases. We struggle to think differently, organisations have similar offerings, we are comfortable buying the same things. What it has brought about is the conforming individual. Then brands complain when they cannot recruit someone dynamic.

4. ‘The Littlest Hobo’ – like the dog in the TV series, “one day I’ll settle down but until tomorrow, I’ll just keep moving on.” We have several generations where fluidity is the norm.

5. New individualism - signified by people designing their own biographies, creating several identities over their life time, individual expression, self actualisation and the ability and confidence to think different rather than comply with the norm, their parents so easily leant towards.

6. We have been busy creating selves rather than beings.

It is buffeting us in all sections of our lives. Those of us brought up within a culture of short termism, risk and the technological revolution are filled with contradiction. A friend who is in a long-term relationship says that he doesn’t think that we are destined nowadays to spend more than 8 – 10 years with one partner. A connection on Twitter sees their career as ‘flighty’ because they are nothing more than a commodity. And, a relative spends thousands of pounds on something they don’t need because “life is just too short. Thankfully and testament to 2008, its not on a credit card. If life is too short why, on the whole, are we living longer?

You can’t do everything that’s a fact, yet we try. Its a big thing for me but last year I learnt a huge lesson; distraction clutters the mind it doesn’t clear it! I spent 2010 trying to clear it. So 2011 for all of us, for all sorts of reasons needs to be about focus. We can’t afford from a cash and time perspective to go down blind alleys and avenues of little reward. Don’t get me wrong we need more ideas than we ever had before, the trick is to keep focused on the goals. I offer five marketing resolutions to guide:

1. Think about building a business community around your brand rather than a database of customers. You will need to encourage and facilitate a more participative and engaged customer in the future. Building a community will not only enable that but encourage the deep relationships you need to create. It does mean being more imaginative and creative.

2. You can’t do everything but what you can do is think about online first and offline second. In the last few years you needed an offline presence to develop an online one, its switched. Think SEO, content marketing, social media, online PR, reputation management and investing more in that website.

3. Get your messaging right. People, even in a B2B environment buy emotionally yet all our marketing literature and sales pitch is built around the physical aspects of our product/service. As there is so much ‘sameness’ out there, people are becoming increasingly interested in emotionally bonding themselves to your brand.

4. Move on from ‘customer service’ to ‘customer experience.’ There is a huge difference and its linked to building a business community. Some would argue that its the only competitive advantage we have left. We know that intense and intimate relationships with customers is of paramount importance. We have gone beyond buying customers through traditional marketing to increasing our loyal customers and that means labour intensive work on a people to people level not abdication marketing!

5. Return on investment. Not just financial returns in fact I don’t mean that. What I mean is increased customer retention, improved customer acquisition, cross and up selling, number of connections, number of interactions, number of influencers in your community etc etc. If you get those bits right, the financial returns will fall out the bottom.

2011 will be challenging. Getting the marketing formula right is a priority. Focusing on the key elements of marketing will help. Its changed radically and so does your marketing activity. That doesn’t mean doing more, it means doing the right things!

Seth Godin talks incessantly about being remarkable using his ‘purple cow’ as an example of how different we now need to be to stand out in the crowd. Talking to a friend the other day stimulated me into thinking how this is working at the moment!

His remark about being remarkable was that he, well wasn’t, remarkable. What tosh! We are all remarkable in a unique, special and unusual way. It’s true a lot of us spend a lifetime trying to discover what it is and some of us are especially luck and find it early in our lives. Whatever, the fact remains we are each and every one of us remarkable.

The trouble is that if you’re remarkable at something that isn’t work orientated, or you don’t think you are remarkable! What happens if what you do, lots of others are doing too? The abundance/scarcity issue again! There are plenty of examples. What do you do then? Well latch onto, work with, co create, piggy back someone who can make a career out of being remarkable and by being beside them it will rub off, motivate, inspire and above all bring happiness, not to mention the income that you deserve!