Social networking - playing the long game

How much of marketing is focused on what people might or should think five years from now? Not a whole lot I suspect as corporations focus on the next quarter and zero in on the last mile, the moment of truth and the shopper insights that inform those strategies. The rise of online marketing, the extraordinary progress of search and newer and quicker optimization tools merely fuels the thirst for now and the ability to squeeze the last drops out of the wet rag sometimes at the expense of the search for new supplies of water.

Social networks are a challenge for marketers (outside the entertainment sector) who are frustrated by a lack of 'RESULTS RIGHT NOW' outcomes compounded by a prevailing view that they are somehow important nonetheless.

Maybe the real answer lies in using the newest of all communication environments to play a much longer game and work to influence opinion among people who will be most economically active in the future.

So far we can speculate about about a few things that do and do not work. Collaborative tools are good, applications that let people do stuff are good; ads are not so good. So when you think about about a brand, a category or a business what applications might you create and share that will involve communities and encourage them to co-develop with you and consequently build a positive relationship that you might cash in some time in the future.