Sometimes, I tell people we do digital marketing. Other times, I tell them we do social media marketing. Still other times, I talk about digital channel development. In the end, when I think of marketing, it's all about one or two things: engagement and sales. If we get the first, we hope that translates into the second. If we bypass the first, then the second is still a nice outcome.

Every few days, a blog post comes along to define the space, to explain the terms, to tell people how to look at it all. In some ways, these translations are useful. We're all learning a new language that doesn't yet exist, and yet, is as old as people shaking hands. But while others want to make definitions, I want to make our client partners happy. I want to help them see results for their money. I want their leadership to say, "Wow. This is amazing. Why didn't we do this before?"

Marketing is defined as selling goods or services. Once abstracted, it's defined as making products or services desirable for purchase. Abstract it a bit more than that, add a few digital terms in there, and we fall away from the basics: we're here to sell something.

What's different with how we use social media? Depending on WHO uses it, what's different is that we care about engagement, and we care about relationships that yield more than we care about raw numbers. In old marketing, we asked how big your database was. In new marketing, we talk about how many "very active" people are in your database. We work from that angle, that aspect, and we shine up the opportunity to promote and develop even more "very active" people.

Is it PR? Is it Marketing? Is it sales support? Is it customer service? Yes. Move on.

It's okay to explain, but at the end of the day, I'm getting paid to deliver more customers, more active participants, more rings of that register, and that's what I spend my time thinking about.

You?

Photo Credit: Giant Ginko