The first anniversary of the beginning of my blogging life was March 4th. To mark this event, over the next week or so I'm going to highlight a few posts from the past year with some commentary on why I chose them.
The first choice is the obvious one - the first post. It included an opening 'welcome' and then focused on what social marketing is: behaviors rather than products and services, with an emphasis on the 'Place' dimension. The timing of this one is somewhat eerie as the social marketing list serve just had a torrent of postings at the end of last week dealing with exactly the same subject. As I started exploring the b'sphere I discovered that some people were beginning to attach a whole new meaning to the term and contacted one of those bloggers to discuss it. When Nedra Weinreich started blogging at Spare Change, she discoverered even more new uses of the term. Happily, she reports that there may be a resolution to at least one aspect of this 'crisis.'
Social marketers mimic the use of the "4Ps" employed in the commercial marketing sector to think about and plan their programs. Often the "Product" for social marketing is not the tangible item found in commercial marketing practice, or even the services offered by various types of providers. Rather, it is a behavior they are encouraging people to adopt (get a regular breast cancer screening mammogram, eat 5 or more servings of fruits and vegetables), discouraging them from trying (teens and tobacco or other illicit drug use), or stopping altogether (cigarette smoking, binge drinking).
Technorati Tags: Marketing Mix, Social Marketing
Congratulations on your one-year anniversary. Your blog is consistently interesting and well-written! Thanks for all your hard work.
Posted by: Lisa | 20 March 2006 at 08:45 AM