When I Started, Volvo Didn’t Even Have A Website

Rich Ullman, Senior Vice-President, Marketing for Ripple6, Inc., a social marketing platform, recounted his history in digital advertising from the time when companies simply scanned print content online to create their websites. Rich has seen a lot of change in the digital space along the way and says the pace of it keeps increasing, “Things have changed more in the past nine months than in the past nine years and social media is at the center of it”. Rich shared several compelling statistics to prove his point.
• 1 out of 8 people met via social media
• If Facebook was a country, it would be the world’s 3rd largest
• YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine
According to Rich, the power of social media overcomes the advantages of scale. Large companies or political parties for that matter no longer control the dialogue, giving the little guy the ability to succeed as well. In this digital revolution, companies need to learn to harness the power of digital marketing much like riding a horse. You need to guide it, but you can’t fully control it.
Rich summarized his talk be saying that social media is big and getting bigger. It has changed the way people live and behave and has given us the ability to connect like never before. For marketers, it’s now a conversation rather than a campaign.

David Montfort