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Word of mouth is a force to be reckoned with, but it isn't a new force. People have always talked about the products they use. The tweeting, chatting, e-mailing, and all-around instantaneous forms of communication, that's new, and it has brought our attention back to the power of word of mouth, and consequently the power of designing products that get talked about. If companies do a better job creating products that are valuable and remarkable, will that render advertising useless? It depends on what you mean by advertising, but paying for a place in media will remain far from useless.

While changes in the business landscape may render traditional advertising less valuable, there are other ways that companies pay to be seen. For example, the work that fills and surrounds websites revolves around the need for companies to change perceptions, build brands, and drive sales. While interactive marketing is often less disruptive than a thirty second tv spot, it's nevertheless paid for. The user may not see it as advertising, but when they find a brand on Google it's because of SEO (or PPC). When they get a message from a brand on Facebook, it's from someone who is getting paid to send those messages. When a user reads content on a brand website, that content is written with marketing objectives in mind.

Ultimately, the question is: what is advertising? If you mean the thirty second television spot and radio ads, it may be dead. It's cheaper to build a good product and let people talk about it than spend your way to market share with these types of advertisements. But, if you mean paying to change perceptions, to get attention, and to drive sales, well, that isn't going anywhere.

No one has time for things they don't believe in, so many companies don't have time for content. Without understanding its real value, they see it as a cost instead of an investment. In reality, compelling content is fundamental to success online, and here's why:

Good, Targeted Content Spreads

Creating viral content is still a big deal for many companies, but it doesn't take five million views on Youtube to do great things for a company. While the object of many social campaigns seems to be creating a mainstream phenomenon, the target market for many companies isn't mainstream. For a lot of companies, aiming for mainstream consumers rather than a niche group is like shooting to just hit the target instead of the bullseye.

Though there are a large number of companies focusing on general consumer goods and services, strategies that try to create the next online phenomenon do little for most companies because the audience is too broad. Content spreads the most effectively when it is emotionally compelling and targeted at a specific audience. Content that is insightful, inspiring, useful, surprising, upsetting, frightening, or exciting will spread. And, if it's relevant to your audience, it will spread to the right people, even if it doesn't spread to as many.

Search Engines Love Content

Because the people who send you links tend to send you business as well, links are a useful metric to measure, but links are also valuable on a more technical level. For search engines, links play a large part in determining the importance and relevance of a website. Although there are other ways to get links, there's nothing as powerful for a link building campaign as a piece of quality content that gets shared. Here too, misconceptions abound.

There's so much talk about the people who link and why they link, but in reality the best links are rarely mysteries. The people who link are usually influencers in the target market, and they link because the content is useful or compelling. The internet is mainstream now -- instead of creating content focused on technological influencers, it makes more sense to understand your market and create content they would find interesting regardless of the fact that they found it online. Everyday your customers are likely talking, writing, tumbling, and interacting with media online. If you build it, they will link.

Another misconception some people have is that link building is a pure numbers game. The truth is that search engines are just as concerned, if not more so, with the quality and relevancy of inbound links as they are with the number of them. That's why creating good content is vastly superior to other methods of getting links: good content stands a chance at getting picked up by important and relevant sites in your niche. Other methods such as social media profiles, message boards, and link trades rarely make as much of a difference as a few good links from influential individuals. That being said, Google and friends regard links as a way to measure the conversation about your brand online, if one person thinks the world of you, that's great, but if fifty people think the world of you, that's better.

Good Content Gets You into The Conversation

The internet has moved from static information to a dialog between individuals, and now to a dialog between brands and their customers. Creating content is the best way to join this conversation, and it greatly benefits your search, social, and even PR efforts. The question is: does your company have the time for content?

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A lot gets said about the need for companies to innovate, but not much gets said about what happens when you innovate too early. Because big ideas have small time frames, innovating too early often leads to the same end as not innovating at all.

At my last job I setup a deal between my company and another startup called Lookery. Lookery was in the business of connecting publishers to advertisers by monetizing users' cookie profiles. From my end it seemed like Lookery had a compelling offering, and they did, but unfortunately Lookery was recently forced to close shop.

Scott Rafer, the CEO of Lookery, writes on his blog:

Once we sold the ad network, I fell into a bad old habit — persuading my team to build something before the market was ready for it.

If you keep an eye on the startup scene, especially in the tech sector, you'll see a large number of companies failing because the market isn't ready. It's simultaneously refreshing and sobering to see so many entrepreneurs trying to make their ideas work. Refreshing because they are trying, and sobering because they are failing. These companies serve as a warning sign: sometimes, speed isn't everything. The first mover advantage is, in fact, not always an advantage.

Good salesmen educate their customers about what appear to be little differences. When it comes to a suit, it's not the practicality or aesthetic value of two buttons, three buttons, or brass buttons that matters -- it's the history behind the particular style, the story of the brand that made it, and the pop culture surrounding it. These seemingly little differences are, in fact, extremely important. Without them, the suit business would be in trouble.

Strategy is king. Though the internet has revolutionized our mediums and given us new tools to work with, success is still largely dictated by strategies that have been effective for years past. Yes, the newcomers are innovators, but their success stands on the shoulders of history. What works now has worked before. When it comes to customer service, the model of the day is Zappos. Zappos has great customer service, but before Zappos there was Ritz Carlton, Nordstrom, and many others. These companies were icons of customer service when new media meant colored television.

So, here's the thing: customer service is about treating people like people. That means good customer service was possible long before the internet. While our pictures of timely responses, courtesy, and going the extra mile may look different online than they did offline, these things are still the fundamentals of good service.

There is a movement building momentum in the marketing world. It's not a bad idea, but like all movements there are those pulling the bandwagon, and those who are merely riding along. The idea is that social media will humanize corporations.

Unprecedented possibilities will open before our eyes. Citizens will chat merrily with corporations on Twitter. Brands will integrate seamlessly into our daily lives on Facebook. Best of all, every mistake made by giant hungry monoliths will be made known to the masses, and the sheer power of the people (also known as bad PR, bad luck, a shitstorm, and every CEO's worst nightmare) will transform companies worldwide into loveable organizations run by real, genuine, and kind human beings instead of the evil prawns running them today.

Good customer service was possible before the internet, and bad customer service will be around long after. As long as companies believe a new medium, instead of a new strategy, is the answer to all their problems things will never change. Good customer service results from being committed to doing right by your customers, no matter the cost incurred. The medium is irrelevant.