Last summer, during the #140Conf Summer Road Trip, I interviewed James Newton - Director of Marketing for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.  Here's his take on how they are approaching the social Internet and not just the famed race that takes place today, but the Indianaplis Motor Speedway year round.

If you are managing a brand,you should be paying attention to this subtle, but important shift in the way brands are being spoken about through human actions such as sharing, liking and commenting on brands and related content.

Content about brands may not always come from the brand itself.  They are coming from your customers who are taking your brand’s message and articulating their own voice in how they feel and interact with your brand.

Social broadcasters are adapting to, and creating new lingua franca, which needs to be on your radar.

Start thinking of how words like share, like, re-tweet, and comment come into play in your marketing strategies.  Listen and engage with your customers and create meaningful, engaging content that can be re-purposed by your most ardent brand loyalists.  Be prepared to engage and respond to customers who no longer use call centers or your info@ email address when there’s a problem or resolution needing to be taking place.

Learn to understand the meaning of terminology such as fail, feed, snarky, mashup, tag, sticky, thread, next, flock and post, that are the new transitive verbs in marketing. Have plans and expertise in place to interface and better serve your customers.

Think about the role of social influence and how thought leaders and brand advocates can become your new and expanded sales channel.  Discover and engage with Mommy bloggers if you’re selling to Moms.  Find Geeky bloggers if you’re doing technology. 

Take a longer-term view and look at the implications of the mobile / social Internet and how you can empower, engage and grow your brand.   Look beyond your company’s web site and make sure you’re listening to and engaging at the periphery of the social Internet on places like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr. 

Your customers are engaging and in some cases taking ownership of your brand.  You can now post once, and have it re-broadcast by many.

Listen, learn, share and engage. 

Disrupt your competitors and seize this unique time in human history when the Social Broadcaster can be your BFF – (brand’s friend forever)

Microphones shot on location at Fuller's Vintage Guitars, Houston by Alan Weinkrantz - (c) 2010

Here's a real email I just received from the Director of Media Relations at a company called eSwarm.

No, I did not doctor this up.  

She did the right thing by paying attention to the fact that I write about PR and Social Media.  

But when I saw her offer to actually pay me to write about it, I was pretty amazed.  I thought of continuing the conversation to ask how much they would actually pay me, but I decided not to go there.  

If you are going to pitch me on something really cool, I am happy to take a look.  But if you offer me a mordita to cover you is just plain old dumb.