n of online activists, you could have one friend send your message to 500 others. The prospect of a low-cost, highly targeted viral effect will bring many consumer brands into this space. Yet the number of misses will surely exceed the number of hits.

The number and variety of segments and messages we prepare for in a typical campaign must dramatically increase because a brand has to consider its voice, tone and manner as it addresses many discrete and discriminating customer segments. Brands have to think ha

Facebook, MySpace, Xanga, Friendster, Flickr and other social networks are creating a generation of self-branding experts who will see, hear and filter messages differently than ever before.

Millions of young people are creating, maintaining and manipulating their personal brands everyday online. They decide which images to show, which friends to feature, which notes to post, which people to exclude and shape the ways others perceive them. In a perpetual digital high school environment where clicks rule and people are conscious of how, when and why they are sorted into segments (jocks, nerds, freaks, sorority girls), managing and protecting your brand becomes a daily task like brushing your teeth or checking your e-mail.

People with profiles on social networks also understand that they are routinely being scrutinized and evaluated as potential friends, dates, interns, employees, audience members or sales prospects. So they consciously present themselves in ways that influence which things they are sorted into and which they are sorted out of. On top of their usual online moxie, profile managers are looking shape how they are sorted, filtered and segmented. They are simultaneously selling and persuading while they evade and escape those seeking to sell them. Add this hands-on brand management experience to the existing well-developed opt-in mentality and you are looking at a generation extremely marketing savvy civilians able to filter and discriminate between marketing messages with ease across multiple channels.

Talking to the seasoned, skeptical Facebook crowd requires a marketing agility and an understanding of segmentation that is exponentially richer than the expectations we have today. Putting up one video on YouTube will probably not appeal to a mass audience. In fact, before you place anything on these networks you need to forecast who will rally to it and who will reject it. Establishing a product or brand driven group will empower some segments and repulse others.

If you are lucky enough to capture the imagination of online activists, you could have one friend send your message to 500 others. The prospect of a low-cost, highly targeted viral effect will bring many consumer brands into this space. Yet the number of misses will surely exceed the number of hits.

The number and variety of segments and messages we prepare for in a typical campaign must dramatically increase because a brand has to consider its voice, tone and manner as it addresses many discrete and discriminating customer segments. Brands have to think har

eople are conscious of how, when and why they are sorted into segments (jocks, nerds, freaks, sorority girls), managing and protecting your brand becomes a daily task like brushing your teeth or checking your e-mail.

People with profiles on social networks also understand that they are routinely being scrutinized and evaluated as potential friends, dates, interns, employees, audience members or sales prospects. So they consciously present themselves in ways that influence which things they are sorted into and which they are sorted out of. On top of their usual online moxie, profile managers are looking shape how they are sorted, filtered and segmented. They are simultaneously selling and persuading while they evade and escape those seeking to sell them. Add this hands-on brand management experience to the existing well-developed opt-in mentality and you are looking at a generation extremely marketing savvy civilians able to filter and discriminate between marketing messages with ease across multiple channels.

Talking to the seasoned, skeptical Facebook crowd requires a marketing agility and an understanding of segmentation that is exponentially richer than the expectations we have today. Putting up one video on YouTube will probably not appeal to a mass audience. In fact, before you place anything on these networks you need to forecast who will rally to it and who will reject it. Establishing a product or brand driven group will empower some segments and repulse others.

If you are lucky enough to capture the imagination of online activists, you could have one friend send your message to 500 others. The prospect of a low-cost, highly targeted viral effect will bring many consumer brands into this space. Yet the number of misses will surely exceed the number of hits.

The number and variety of segments and messages we prepare for in a typical campaign must dramatically increase because a brand has to consider its voice, tone and manner as it addresses many discrete and discriminating customer segments. Brands have to think ha

which they are sorted out of. On top of their usual online moxie, profile managers are looking shape how they are sorted, filtered and segmented. They are simultaneously selling and persuading while they evade and escape those seeking to sell them. Add this hands-on brand management experience to the existing well-developed opt-in mentality and you are looking at a generation extremely marketing savvy civilians able to filter and discriminate between marketing messages with ease across multiple channels.

Talking to the seasoned, skeptical Facebook crowd requires a marketing agility and an understanding of segmentation that is exponentially richer than the expectations we have today. Putting up one video on YouTube will probably not appeal to a mass audience. In fact, before you place anything on these networks you need to forecast who will rally to it and who will reject it. Establishing a product or brand driven group will empower some segments and repulse others.

If you are lucky enough to capture the imagination of online activists, you could have one friend send your message to 500 others. The prospect of a low-cost, highly targeted viral effect will bring many consumer brands into this space. Yet the number of misses will surely exceed the number of hits.

The number and variety of segments and messages we prepare for in a typical campaign must dramatically increase because a brand has to consider its voice, tone and manner as it addresses many discrete and discriminating customer segments. Brands have to think ha

ing to the seasoned, skeptical Facebook crowd requires a marketing agility and an understanding of segmentation that is exponentially richer than the expectations we have today. Putting up one video on YouTube will probably not appeal to a mass audience. In fact, before you place anything on these networks you need to forecast who will rally to it and who will reject it. Establishing a product or brand driven group will empower some segments and repulse others.

If you are lucky enough to capture the imagination of online activists, you could have one friend send your message to 500 others. The prospect of a low-cost, highly targeted viral effect will bring many consumer brands into this space. Yet the number of misses will surely exceed the number of hits.

The number and variety of segments and messages we prepare for in a typical campaign must dramatically increase because a brand has to consider its voice, tone and manner as it addresses many discrete and discriminating customer segments. Brands have to think ha

n of online activists, you could have one friend send your message to 500 others. The prospect of a low-cost, highly targeted viral effect will bring many consumer brands into this space. Yet the number of misses will surely exceed the number of hits.

The number and variety of segments and messages we prepare for in a typical campaign must dramatically increase because a brand has to consider its voice, tone and manner as it addresses many discrete and discriminating customer segments. Brands have to think harder, get closer to their customers and respect the conventions and sensibilities of each network. MySpace makes micro-targeting of messages and media a mandate.