Jeremiah Owyang put together a great presentation where he describes the importance for brands to scan the landscape and understand the fish they are trying to catch. For most marketers doing this sort of customer research and segmentation has always been part of our approach for reaching the right audience.

Social media however has changed the landscape when it comes to reaching customer segments. Which is perhaps this is why we have seen such an emphasis on things like influencer marketing and word of mouth recently. These ideas are not new, however it has never been easier to identify who is talking about your products, make an assessment of their ability to influence others and engage directly in a conversation with them.

Marketers are trying to dip their bait in the middle of Facebook and Twitter streams with the assumption that if one "fish" in the school takes the bait others will follow. Therefore increasing things like sales, leads or brand engagement.

A couple of questions come to mind with all this talk of marketers fighting to get in to the stream. Will the "fish" begin to ignore the bait? or Will dipping your line into the stream catch only the fish you want?

I am interested to hear thoughts on how word of mouth marketing will evolve beyond simply appearing in a Facebook or twitter stream?