How Social Media Is Changing the 4Ps of Marketing: Stories from Real Companies

Consumers are more empowered than ever before. They have more choices available to them, more options, and more alternatives. Thanks to technological advances and the growth of the Internet, and more recently social media, customers can now even perform most of a company's core marketing functions.

And, increasingly, companies are beginning to reach out to their customers to help them with their marketing efforts; in some cases, companies are actually turning some marketing functions over to their customers entirely.

Many companies are discovering that their customers have a much bigger impact on each other, in a marketing sense, than the company ever could by attempting to market to the customer directly.

This article will cover some examples of how companies have successfully turned at least one of the 4 Ps of Marketing over to their customers, as well as some ways that your company can do the same; and, finally, it will discuss why giving away your marketing can greatly improve it.

Giving Away the 4 Ps of Marketing

Anyone who's taken Marketing 101 has heard of the 4 Ps of Marketing: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. But what you may not know is that some companies are turning these Ps over to their customers. Here are some examples. 

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Mack Collier is a social-media consultant and writes for The Viral Garden and MarketingProfs Daily Fix. Reach him via mack.collier@theviralgarden.com and follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mackcollier.