Secret No. 1: Social Networking

Introduction 
The good news 
Secret No. 1: Social Networking   
Secret No. 2: Spheres of Influence   
Secret No 3: Greed 
Finding the easy way or the hard way 

The social networking phenomenon is teaching us, very clearly, that people desperately want to share things about themselves. They want others to know what they like, what they don't like, even (thanks to services such as Twitter) what they're doing at this very moment.

There's an element of narcissism and self-absorption present throughout most social networking tools today, but these emotional elements only serve to fuel the growth of social networking devices, both in terms of user volume and their usefulness as marketing tools.

Why do millions of consumers show off their music collections online? Who knows. But smart companies such as Apple, Lala.com and Pandora are profiting from this phenomenon. They've built products and platforms that not only tap into the psyches of audiophiles, but get each of those users to share an incredible amount of information about themselves with their peers. 

These companies can then use that shared information to target products and services back to their customers. And when offers are made with this deep level of relativity and context -- based on the customers' musical brag list and their inherent interest in showing off even more -- they're rarely perceived as marketing. They're often seen as new, "discovered" opportunities for each consumer to accelerate and grow the very social network benefit that drew them to their preference-sharing activities in the first place.

This impact isn't limited to music fans, of course.

Professional sports teams can access casual and rabid fans alike (and differentiate between the two) by tapping into myriad social networks that orbit each team and league.

Want to target cooks? Good luck capturing them via an ad network or traditional, shotgun channel (online or offline). But tap deep into the countless foodie networks online, and you can get very specific, very actionable information about current and prospective customers.

Even better, the smart marketers are creating their own social networks for their customers, giving them the opportunity to self-identify and widely share information about themselves in a format that completely and beautifully exploits the very reasons why social networking has become so widely popular.

None of these opportunities are waiting for technological innovation or expensive CRM software. Most of this can be unlocked with the tools each of us have available to us today.

Next: Secret No. 2