Mark Schaefer is a globally recognized author, speaker, futurist, and marketing consultant whose latest book is “Belonging to the Brand”.
“Markets are conversations”.
That was the opening line in the classic marketing book “The Cluetrain Manifesto” published in the year 2000. The authors urged marketers to give up mass messaging and speak with a human voice. Their clarion call for radical change resonated with a lot of techno-utopian marketers at the time – the book went on to become a huge bestseller – but it was only several years later that the idea of conversational marketing became feasible with the emergence of the social web.
In the early 2000s social networks began springing up everywhere – first MySpace in 2003, followed in rapid succession by Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube and Twitter, and then a few years later by Pinterest and Instagram. By 2010 marketers recognized the importance of participating on these platforms as they watched their active user bases stretch across the globe. People were flocking to social media in droves, led by millennials keen to connect with their friends, to share personal news (and selfies), to voice their thoughts, and of course marketers are instantly drawn to places where people like to hang out. But instead of engaging in actual conversations, marketers viewed the platforms as just another communication channel – a new, more targeted way to reach an audience, at a fraction of the cost of traditional media.
Talk about unforeseen consequences. The platforms thrived on the sudden surge in ad dollars. And to keep the money rolling in, they skewed their algorithms to drive engagement, as we learned later, by giving undue weight to “us versus them” posts. Indignation and outrage is good for business, apparently. We all know what happened next. The platforms became an echo chamber, giving license to incite hate speech, peddle conspiracy theories, and spread misinformation. Prolonged use began to affect the mental health of teens. To the point where most people now believe that social media does more harm than good.
What we seem to forget, however, is that the mainstream social networks, funded almost entirely by ad dollars, are not all there is to social media. Just as all marketing is now digital marketing, all digital marketing is bound to become social marketing. And that means inviting people to join the brand of their own free will, forming communities of devout fans and followers. Instead of pulling people through the sales funnel by posting thinly disguised promotional messages, the marketing goal is to keep customers excited and involved – to offer them immediate service and support – to put them in touch with each other – to invite continuous feedback – above all, to get them to participate, in events, in content creation, even in product development.
However, for most companies today, a brand community is merely a way to deflect customer support calls by funneling people through to discussion forums where they can get their questions answered by other users. But where a community actually pays off eventually is in building long-term customer relationships. The challenge is convincing myopic CFOs that all of the effort and investment will pay off. Because building an enthusiastic and participatory brand community is not easy. It can take years to reach critical mass. But, as Mark Schaefer points out in his new book “Belonging to the Brand”, marketers have no choice. He believes that building community is the “last great marketing strategy”. Maybe even marketing’s last gasp.
People “long to belong” Schaefer says and that presents an opportunity for brands to connect with them on a more meaningful level. The author of nine other books, including the best-selling “Marketing Rebellion”, the Tennessee-resident is well liked for his humanistic views and folksy charm, making him both a popular speaker and a beloved blogger.
I started by asking Mark how he first embarked on his marketing career.
Mark Schaefer (MS): Well, I actually started in college as a chemistry major. Because I loved science and I always heard that…I mean, I love to write but I always heard you could never make money in journalism. And believe me, I was so poor as a kid, I just wanted some money. I didn’t like the people in chemistry because they were all under this pressure to be a doctor and they were just so stressed out. So, for fun, I took, like, an intro to journalism class. And number one, I learned that there are a lot of things you can do with writing just, you know, in addition to journalism. And number two, I loved the people in journalism school. They wanted to change the world, they wanted to seek truth. I thought, “These are my peeps. This is where I belong.”
Then, in my junior year, I took a marketing class. And I thought, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is what I really wanna do,” but it was too late to change my major. So, I minored in marketing and sort of had my eye on ending up in marketing. So, I started out in corporate communications and then I got into sales. Because I was working for a Fortune 100 company, to get into marketing, the path, I had to go through sales. And, actually, I agree with that. I think it made a lot of sense. And while I was in sales, I got my MBA with an emphasis on marketing and I got to study under Peter Drucker. So, that was sort of a mind-changing event, a life-changing event.
I had good instincts about marketing and business but going through that degree program really validated it, I think, and gave me more confidence. And then, finally, I got into a marketing job and I was given the opportunity to really go into every kind of area. I was in product development. I was in charge of CRM. I was the first digital e-business director for this company. We pioneered our first applications in social media. And the company was wonderful. From the time I was a young man to the time I left, I was almost always the youngest person in the room. They just pushed me, pushed me, pushed me to realize my full potential. So, I had a great career and then got into a situation where they wanted me to move to Europe. So, I kind of went back and forth for a little bit and I had a personal situation in my life where I thought I really can’t do this, I need to stay home, I need to try something else. I was at a point in my life where I could start my own business. I started consulting, started teaching, started writing. And it just has been kind of a rocket ship.
Today, I do consulting. I teach at Rutgers University a little bit, it’s not like a full-time thing. And I’m a keynote speaker, I just signed a contract to go to my 74th country, I’m gonna be in Romania in May, giving a speech. And so, that’s been very exciting. And, of course, you know, I’m an author. And I just published my 10th book. And it’s my best book, so, something I’m very proud of and something I enjoy a lot.
Stephen Shaw (SS): So, that early training in journalism paid off in the end with that career switch. That was a great career switch to make too because you had spent, what, two decades at Alcoa, I think, in total?