Though membership at Augusta may be out of reach, marketers will be wise to join the right clubs in 2008 by capitalizing on the growing appeal of social networks. Besides the Goliaths like MySpace and Facebook, growing social networks exist in just about every niche of life, from teens (Pizco and Tagged) to seniors (Eons) to photographers (Flickr) to young do-gooders (AllDayBuffet) to B2B (LinkedIn and Plaxo) to gamblers (BetsGoWild, a Renegade client) to just about every interest group (MeetUp).

Renegade is in the process of building a virtual Gilda's Club for cancer patients and their loved ones as a means of extending and enhancing Gilda's Club's 20 physical locations. For Chase, creating a partnership with Facebook has helped make its "+1" credit card become the card of choice among college kids.

Other marketers might be smart to create a social network for their target if one doesn't exist or to take an existing virtual social network and make it physical (Second Life had its first offline convention in 2007). So figure out how you can join the club in 2008 or risk being left out of all the fun.