City Social Marketing

Marketing and Social Marketing

Social marketing uses the principles of marketing as a tool to influence human behavior for a variety of reasons.

Several years ago I was listening to the Empires Album by Queensryche and during the song Silent Lucidity I heard voices say:

Visualize your dream
Record it in the present tense
Put it into a permanent form
If you persist in your efforts
You can achieve dream control

At that time I never had the thought of going into marketing, I was happy doing what I was doing as an occupation. Recently while working on my City Social Marketing site, these lyrics popped into my head out of nowhere. When I thought of the passage, I went and looked up exactly what was said an it seemed so appropriate for what I was doing. In fact I like these words so much that I think I’ll borrow them, which is something I normally do not do with songs.. but as Val Kilmer once said “It’s a moral imperative“.

These lyrics mimic the basic concepts of marketing. First you must see your dream and make it an idea you wish to attain. Then you must put it into develope your idea and make it a plausible reality through a workable plan. Finally you must work to put this plan into action and once you do then your dream becomes reality. In this way you do achieve dream control, at least where your ideas and desires are concerned. At the end of the day, when all is said and done, you will find great satisfaction in seeing your brainchild grow from a few simple ideas floating around in your head to something tangible.

As a part of you planning, if you wish to be successful, you must realize the three basic elements of marketing. First you must know your audience, this doesn’t matter whether you are trying to sell a product or service or idea. You will find that in order to accomplish your goals you must realize that it’s all about “Them, them, them”. In the past some pretty great ideas flopped because people felt they could make people do as they wish by simply putting out their ideas and expecting others to do as the person wanted. Rarely does this happen in real life, people have to coerce others and sway them to their way of thinking. You must take your idea and convince people that your idea is worth their time and money.

The second element is that you must act on your ideas. An idea is only an idea if you never do anything to put the idea into action. Most often it takes time and alot of time consuming work in order to make your ideas something that others will want. Never give up! If your idea is a good one and you strive, then you can work through the tough times and enjoy the benefits to come.

Finally there must be an exchange. If you want someone to behave in the manner you wish them to act, then you must offer that person something that appeals to them.

Always remember the 4 P’s of Marketing: Product, Price, Place and Promotion.

Product is symbolic for the desired item which you are asking of your audience and it’s benefits, objects, and/or services.

Price is the financial, emotional, psychological, or time-related costs which the audience faces in making the desired change.

Place is where the audience will access the program products, services or learn of your ideas.

Promotion is basically the advertising of your product, service or idea. This will include, but is not limited to: communications, messages, materials, web sites, and activities that will effectively reach your audience.

City Social Marketing

What is City Social Marketing? Over the course of the past week or two, I’ve scoured Google for a definition with out success. It seems to me that no real definition for City Social Marketing exists. This, to me, leaves a void, so I will help to fill that void because nature hates a vacuum. Ok, I’ll be honest, I will strive to create a definition for this term because I have no life and I don’t have anything better to do.

City Social Marketing is a specialized field of marketing which uses the principles of marketing and social marketing as a tool to bring people, who are linked geographically in some way, together for the purpose of interacting with each other. It can take on many aspects and has little to do with monetary reasons. City Social Marketing can involve such things as message boards where people can go and talk about the places they live or grew up, it also can be a place to make contact with old friends and acquaintances, however it can also deal with such things as selling products which the people of a given area might wish to buy. City Social Marketing, as a web site, can be a meeting hall, department store and a cathedral of learning. There are a multitude of things which can fall under City Social Marketing… but the whole thing must tie into geographic locations.

City Social Marketing was first coined, to the best of my knowledge by a man named Chris Lang. I was having problems coming up with a good name for what I was trying to do and he came up with the term. This term goes far beyond what I originally envisioned, or envision now (to tell the truth), but it’s an excellent term and one that is as close to original as we can expect. Kudos to Chris for coming up with the term, and thanks go out to him for allowing me to use it. As a side note, when I go to the Trellian Free Search Term Suggestion Tools Site at http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html, I find that there are no findings for City Social Marketing. I plan to fix that as soon as possible by making 1 find on the Keyword combinations.

City Social Marketing, like Social Marketing, is not just a clever slogan or messaging strategy, it’s a whole new segment of Social Marketing. As with all things of this nature, it adopts many of the Social Marketing and Marketing ideas, but it also has parts of it which are unique. As time passes I believe the whole idea of City Social Marketing will grow and expand, perhaps it may even develop branches of it’s own. City Social Marketing will be an idea which will be developed over time and on the surface it may look like other sites on the net, but the truth is that CSM will incorporate other ideas currently on the market, as well as develop it’s own ideas.

City Social Marketing Commandments

1. Geography is of key importance, it is the fabric that binds City Social Marketing together.

2. Develop a social marketing strategy and apply it to Geographic Locations.

3. Know your audience and seek out what they desire, then try to incorporate it (if possible).

4. Show a commitment to your Social Marketing project, if your idea is good then stick it out.

5. Honor your members, so that your days of City Social Marketing be long in the land of the Internet.

6. Do not use City Social Marketing solely as a marketing medium, but rather offer a variety to your members.

7. Do not blindly steal the works of others for it diminishes your site in the eyes of others.

8. Promote your site with great vigor, remember to do unto others as they do unto you.

9. Seek out the Social Marketing Gurus and heed their advice whenever possible.

10. Remember the Weekend, all work and no play makes Jacka dull boy.

Sources:

Community Based Social Marketing
http://www.humboldt.edu/~ccat/appropriatetechnology/ZachSP2005/index.html

Definitions of Social Marketing
http://dis.shef.ac.uk/sheila/marketing/definition.htm

Ethics in Social Marketing

Free Search Term Suggestion Tools
http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html

Idea City
http://blog.ideacity.com/2007/08/08/social-marketing-commandments/#more-451

Key Web Data
Social Marketing and Social Networking, Email Delivery and How to Avoid Spam Filters
http://www.keywebdata.com/

The Basics of Social Marketing
http://www.turningpointprogram.org/Pages/pdfs/social_market/smc_basics.pdf