Engage!

The conventional methods of marketing consist of basic messages and advertising techniques created by a few people and directed toward a large market through channels that distribute the same message, at the same time, in the same ways. This method has worked for generations, but now that consumers are part of a social media world, the rules have changed. In Engage!, Brian Solis argues that traditional methods of marketing can no longer work in a social media environment. Influence has been distributed among all consumers through the social network, so that consumers can trade information amongst themselves, on their own time. This essentially removes a primary method that organizations had to represent their brands. Social media users can now find a wide variety of information on businesses, both positive and negative, on any organization they want, and those sources are no longer controlled by the business.