Social Media Evolution: What Does the Future of Social Marketing Look Like?

Are you amazed at how much social media has changed over the last few years?

Want to discover what's next?

To explore the evolution of social media, I interview Brian Solis.
More About This Show
The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It's designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.

In this episode I interview Brian Solis, a principal analyst at the Altimeter Group. He's written eight books, including Engage and What's the Future of Business? His newest book is called X: The Experience When Business Meets Design.

Brian will explore how social media has changed and how it continues to evolve.

You'll discover how marketers can use moments of truth to engage their customers.

Share your feedback, read the show notes and get the links mentioned in this episode below.
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Here are some of the things you'll discover in this show:
Social Media Evolution
From Engage until now

Brian recalls that in the late 90s and early 2000s, he helped with development around what became social media and realized that two-way digital marketing aspect was going to be phenomenal.

He says his book Engage was the culmination of all that work put into a book designed to help anyone in marketing or business really understand how to become social.

After Engage, Brian says, the world started to change and technology started to accelerate. This is something he studies as both an analyst and an anthropologist.

Brian has continued to write books, do research and speak on how to bridge the world of brand or business with technology and people. He says social has become part of that process, as has mobile and digital transformation, wearables, etc.

When asked about major changes in social media that have taken place between his first book and today, Brian talks about creating an infographic called The Wheel of Disruption while he was writing What's the Future of Business? The infographic showed all of the things that were disrupting industries, with an emphasis on brand, marketing and engagement.

He explains that then and now, the three things Fred Wilson once called The Golden Triangle are at the core of everything.

Brian goes on to discuss how wearables, augmented reality and services like Uber, Instacart, Postmates, Amazon, Drone Delivery and Google Express are creating disruption not only on technology fronts, but also on behavioral and expectation fronts at a human level.

Listen to the show to hear Brian explain how the disruption happening today has grand implications for every business in every industry.

The importance of experience

Brian shares that while many marketers, brand strategists and executives say experience is one of the most important things to deliver, that means different things to different people. From great customer service to great product design, it's all over the map.

Brian believes that everything that happens when you buy, use, shop for or have a problem with something are moments that contribute to the overall experience.

Brian shares why he thinks we should be able to define and design experiences as part of business and branding to build better relationships, and why he believes experience is the next competitive advantage.

He says that while some savvy organizations have introduced efforts to define a brand experience (BX), a customer experience (CX) and a user experience (UX), all of these efforts are disparate. Thus, by default or by design, the experience is disconnected.

Listen to the show to hear why Brian wants to bring all experiences under one banner of X, where everything works together.

Businesses doing a great job with experience

Brian explains that he chose the companies he talks about in his book not because they are examples of holistic experiences,