• by Karl Greenberg , March 6, 2009

At Columbia University's Brite conference on digital media last week, Steve Rubel, senior vice president and director of insights for Edelman Digital, listed a handful of trends that he says should determine media and marketing strategy.

One is that customer service and PR are now blending, and he cited a twenty-something staffer at Edelman's Chicago office to demonstrate. "She says: 'An entire generation is growing up that will never dial an 800 number for customer care'," he said. Brands, he added, have to establish "digital embassies" in social Web sites whose members are likely, because of their psycho or demographics, to buy their products. "We advise brands to find which social networks have the highest concentrations of people who care about them and set up shop there with real people."

Cable provider Comcast is such a company: "They have a person on Twitter every day responding to people's comments and complaints. That's customer service moving in real time."

Rubel argues that as physical newspapers like The Rocky Mountain News fade away, advertisers have to think about media--especially social media, in more general terms. "We are amazed at the number of people who view social media and traditional media as two different things. But 75% of newspaper sites now let people comment, and 100% have blogs. The elephants and zebras have mated, and it's all one species."

He adds that this "media reforestation" includes the brands themselves, whose stewards can turn into de facto media companies. "You don't have to be a content creator, but a content aggregator. Intel launched a site at which it is curating news from the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) with links to blogs, Twitter, and other sites." He said, however, that companies would do better to host content around a theme associated with the brand, not the brand itself.

He praised Best Buy's desktop widget that lets consumers pick computers and also see what's new in technology, and Kraft for creating a 99-cent iPhone app that downloads recipes to the mobile device. Such programs, he says, "break through the noise," because it is content people want, and will opt in--even pay--to get.

"It has all been about push in recent years. Now it's about pull: how do you create stuff people will discover on their own? A convergence will come between search and social networking that will blow your mind. Not this year, but soon. You need to be there creating sources and content that informs. You don't always have to create everything--you can adopt rather than invent."

Rubel argues that corporations have the opportunity, through their own employees' social media efforts, to put a face on their facades.

"As the economy tightens up, people are recognizing that reputation matters. We are seeing more workers flock to social media who say they have to be there to build their own brand as an insurance policy or escape clause." He said corporations should figure out who those people are, and rather than fire them, give them a soapbox. "People should figure out who, in their companies, could be personal brands," he said. "Give your 'all stars' independence--let them know what the ropes are."