With increasing numbers of consumers using social media sites like Twitter®, Facebook®, LinkedIn®, YouTube® and Foursquare® to share their experiences of your brand, a new customer-centric paradigm has emerged – Consumer to Consumer, or C2C. In this new model, consumers are influencing other consumers’ perceptions of your brand or product relative to those of your competitors.

Traditional marketing efforts have long focused on the Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Consumer (B2C) paradigms, where brands typically drove the marketing process with their own positioning strategies and tactics. Prospects and customers would make buying decisions largely on the basis of tightly-controlled content provided by the brand. In those rare instances when buyers insisted on customer references, the brand would provide them.

Enter the world of social media, where consumers freely share their knowledge, impressions and opinions of their experiences of your brand. Unfiltered tweets, posts, updates, videos and check-ins are entered into the public domain, available to anyone with a smartphone, tablet or PC with search engine capability.

The brands that are most successful in this new customer-centric paradigm will be those that find new ways of delivering value to their customers. They will forge strong and enduring relationships with their customers by engaging them when and where they are most receptive – on Twitter®, Facebook®, LinkedIn®, YouTube®, Foursquare® and other social media sites. They will provide their customers with richer experiences, by interacting with them on a more direct basis and inviting them to participate in their marketing efforts in a way that creates shared value for all.

Check out the following posts for more ideas on achieving brand relevance:
• How One Brand Delivered the Unexpected to Create an Unforgettable Customer Experience
• Does Your Brand Have Klout?
• Brand Loyalty Begins at Home…With Your Employees