Last month I traveled to France with my family and we stayed with some
other family members and some family friends.  One of those friends was
Helene Blowers the Public
Services Technology Director for the Public Library of Charlotte &
Mecklenburg County.  Helene maintains the blog LibraryBytes.com which
is a great resource for anyone who’s interested in the applications of
evolving online technologies and services.

Recently Helene gave a presentation at the ALA 2007 conference and she focused it on one slide in her presentation that said the following:

The best way to get customers to market your brand is to allow them to promote you (the Library) by marketing themselves.

All you have to do is substitute "your company" for "the Library" and
this statement is applicable to just about any business.  Many elite
brands figured out long ago how to help their customers promote
themselves and by extension the brands simply by putting their logo on
items.  People who buy high-end items want the world to know that they
can afford said items so they want the brand symbol to be prominent.
Back in the 70s that meant wearing shirts with the Lacoste crocodile
and in the 80s it was the Polo pony player.  What Helene is talking
about, however, is deeper and is specific to the world of Web 2.0:

For me, this is really what web 2.0 is all about. Tools
that allow
users to express themselves, participate in the conversation, and
celebrate and showcase their individual talents. So in looking at web
2.0 and the potential that they hold as marketing tools, it’s important
to realize that "the library" is really not about us (aka the library,
it’s staff, and services); it’s about our community. And what better
way to market to your community and create a sense of ownership then by
letting your community members use your brand to celebrate and market themselves.

While you might think this only applies to companies that provide web
2.0 services, companies like YouTube, Flickr and Yahoo, it really
doesn’t.  Helene’s library doesn’t create Web 2.0 applications but it
does use them to help their end customer.  Your company can probably do
the same, and here are a couple of "off the top of my head" ideas to
demonstrate how:

• A restaurant could use a service like Flickr to have a t-shirt design contest and have customers create design ideas, enable them to show off their designs to friends and family, and prompt them to have their friends and family vote on the design.  It would make for some great word of mouth marketing and announcing the winner would be a natural PR opportunity. 
• A small company can create its own channel on YouTube
  and have customers submit advertising ideas for your company.  This is
  basically stealing a concept from a few Fortune 500 companies that hosted their own ad contests, and now the evolution of YouTube and like services allows any company, no matter how small, to do the same.  Of course the company should do the same things as they did with the first idea (invite family and friends to view and vote) and it also has built in PR opportunities.

Your first step should be subscribing to LibraryBytes.  Helene knows what she’s talking about.

Cross posted on LowderEnterprises.com