Three Important Take-Aways

The three ideas that stood out to me most in the assigned reading are as follows:

1. Exchange - One of the most important principles that guides social marketers is the idea that people will only change their behavior when they feel that they are getting something fair and attractive in exchange.
I found this fact extremely interesting as it proves the fact that humans almost never do something out of the kindness of their hearts.  They want to get something out of whatever activity they are doing.  This is definitely something to take into consideration when creating all marketing plans, especially internet marketing plans.  Marketing through social media platforms must off incentives for people to follow/fan a brand.

2. Marketing Mix - According to social marketing purists, an initiative cannot truly
be referred to as social marketing unless all four Ps are part of the overall approach to behavior change.
The Marketing Mix is a rather classic and old concept in marketing.  It surprised me to see that it is still being used in approaches for internet marketing.  Internet marketing has been said to completely change the way everything is and/or should be marketed.  It is interesting to see how older concepts can still apply appropriately even in the ever changing world of marketing through social media.

3. Market Segmentation - Product positioning takes place within a target market segment and tells us how we can compete most effectively in that market segment. Segmentation analysis tells us how the market is defined and allows us to target one or more opportunities.
The current Market Segmentation process created by Alexander Hiam and Charles Schewe includes six separate steps.  I believe as internet marketing becomes more progressive, these steps will blur together.  I can see the first two steps of developing boundaries and deciding which variables to use in segmenting may even eventually be skipped as privacy barriers online are becoming less prevalent and groups are meshing together as opposed to separating.