We often see things the way we’ve seen things. And we talk about things the way we’ve talked about things.

Conversations are a reflection of reality. People go online to converse. They reconstruct and share their opinions of real world concepts, products, brands, and services. More and more, the online world is an evolving reflection of the offline world’s perceptions.

Traditional marketing generates surveys and sponsors “opinion polls”. Traditional marketing depends upon samples of consumers willing to dedicate time and thought to questions and ideas carefully presented to them by corporate mouthpieces with an obvious agenda.

This isn’t a bad way to go about collecting opinion, but it is limited. First, marketers must find individuals willing to respond, and then craft polls in such a way as to bypass predictable answers. Ultimately, the marketer risks pursuing topics chosen by the corporation or its representatives and not the consumer.

How to address this limitation? Complement the offline research with online engagement: social media. Online conversations are a marketer’s every desire. Online conversations are real opinions, spontaneous discussions, and individually initiated networks and communities of clients, customers and potential customers. These netizens share information, opinions, and recommendations. And all this is recorded and stored forever on the Internet. The only issue then becomes finding it, measuring it, and monitoring the buzz for trends. Trends online can initiate offline surveys or validate a virtual or real world marketing campaign.

Take, for example, a viral video initiated by Carlsberg beer. A clever “whistle” ad with a universally recognized tune, it’s attracting a lot of views on You Tube. Not only has this ad attracted viewers, its generating copy-cat fan ads that compete for attention online. And below each video are comments that admire critique and encourage a growing fan base for the ad as well as the product.

Carlsberg is already a something of a house name for You Tube ad fanatics. Fans self-select based on favoured ads. Perhaps surprisingly, a football ad by Carlsberg attracted not masculine ballers but a number of feminine trawlers. Girls scanning You Tube in search of the celebrity sports star rather than the beer, left a number of comments about the ad’s…aesthetic qualities. The whistling video earned attention from guys and gals looking for a nice tune and a laugh, and the football ad sported a girl-groupie appeal. Both audiences left their comments and criticisms below the videos and no doubt surfed some additional related videos suggested by the You Tube platform.

Social media is more than a target consumer base. In social media, the consumers target the market and let the marketers hear who they are and what they like. Traditional marketers can use this information in framing their own off and on-line research.

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