Remember the old political quip from Bill Clinton’s first campaign, “It’s the economy, stupid”?  It was written throughout his HQ to remind everyone the economy was the central issue of the campaign.

Thanks to Steve Rubel for linking to Thomas Baekdal’s post Where Is Everybody? in which Baekdal creates a graph (reproduced here) that shows how much how we communicate with each other has changed.  It also makes my marketing quip, “It’s the Message, Stupid!”, even more obvious.

My point: don’t forget your marketing message!!

Everybody’s all hyperventilated about whether they should focus on Twitter, continue to blog, give more time to LinkedIn, Facebook, FriendFeed, DIGG and on and on and on.  The same way I imagine they hyperventilated about newspapers, magazines, radio and TV, as the electronic word began to overtake the printed word.

It’s the message, stupid!  Yes, be mindful of how you communicate.  No, that isn’t enough to be successful.  If you have nothing to say or a me-too product, you simply won’t get much traction or notice or attention, regardless of which social medium you employ.

Does the medium change the message?

Sure.  But only the scale, you still need a message that resonates with your target audience.  Imagine yourself a marketer in 1967 tasked with selling Admiral refrigerators.  You just finish this nifty full-page ad in Life magazine and they want you to do a TV commercial.  How do you cram all that information into a short TV spot?!  Good question.  And actually, the answer is you don’t.  You need to take the core of your message and work with that.

Fast forward. . .you can’t even fit that nifty headline into a 140-character tweet!!  How about a 95-character Adwords ad!

Be where your customers and prospects are going for their information.  Clearly, that includes social media.  But make sure you also focus on the message.  Being at the right place isn’t enough.

So, what’s happening?  The horse-car analogy is more obvious.  As social media grows we’re transitioning from transaction-based marketing to more relationship-based marketing.  A hundred internet years ago The Cluetrain Manifesto got it right: marketing is a conversation.  And the conversation went from one-sided and event-oriented to fluid and always-on. CRM software is great for one-sided, event-oriented marketing.  With fluid and always-on marketing, not so much. 

One-sided and event-oriented marketing:  

You buy a list or input a group of people you met at a trade show and start banging away, generally by mail, with your CRM software keeping score and reminding your salespeople to make those phone calls next month.  Each “touch” was planned (letter, mailer, email, phone call, mailer, letter, etc.).  As generally practiced, most of the time the content reflected the traditional “Hey, here’s why we’re different or better, buy from us.”   At its best, the touches became more value-added (less pitches, more knowledge and advice offered).   

Fluid and always-on marketing:

You become part of a larger conversation about your slice of the world.  This extends far beyond even the most dynamic websites.  Your internet footprint is a large one.  You’re commenting on posts, creating video content, and sharing interesting articles, news and websites via a variety of vehicles, including FriendFeed, DIGG, LinkedIn, Twitter and all the rest.  It necessarily gets woven into the fabric of every day.  CRM software doesn’t have a chance!

What I find interesting is less about CRM and more about the nature of marketing.  Like all changes, it happens slower and faster than you expect.  Slower, in that traditional event-oriented marketing isn’t going away.  But it will erode.  Faster, in that those of us who are jumping into social media now will have a head start.  If you aren’t playing with social media now, you may feel it passed you by six months from now.  Mainly because it will have passed you by.

So, bottom line, jump in.  If you don’t have a Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn or DIGG account, set them up and start watching.  Then start doing.  If you already have accounts, use them.

In fact, a great way to start?  DIGG this post by clicking on the second icon below this sentence.  It’ll take you about 3 minutes to set up the account.  Think how much cooler you’ll be in three minutes from now?!  Go ahead, DIGG it!