Somewhere there is an answer to every question we could ever think to ask. This is incredibly useful as I certainly don’t know everything in this age of social media experts, specialists and gurus.

And that’s one of the wonders of social media: if you ask a question, often someone will come back with the answer or, at least, a helpful suggestion.

But it can also work the other way: anyone professing to know everything about a topic can be ‘found out’ if their knowledge is deficient. It’s a bit like Viv Stanshall’s character Reg Smeeton whose favourite question was “Did you know there is no proper name for the back of the knee?” Apparently, the term ‘popliteal fossa’ undermines Reg’s claim.

Rather than imposing our knowledge on other people, asking questions can help to develop social media relationships. Many people are willing to share their knowledge and will do so for someone not afraid to ask. A way to pay back this generosity is to answer other people’s questions on topics about which we are knowledgeable.

Will we look silly if we admit to a hole in our knowledge? I don’t think so. My experience is that when someone asks a question others are often glad because they also want to know the answer.

z2zine tomorrow: Cramming words on to a page

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The power of social media can be staggering, but so can the downward drag of all the dross and spam.

As millions flock to use twitter and similar services, sifting out the rubbish can become a chore (even with clever applications automating it). It’s a bit like discovering an excellent pub where the beer is superb and the conversation even better. At first, a select group frequents the pub, but over months more and more people discover it and eventually it becomes crowded and noisy. Perhaps some of the regulars retreat to a private room to recreate the atmosphere that originally attracted them or maybe even find another pub they can visit in comfort. The pub is now just like any other and eventually it is abandoned and closes as people move on to the next up-and-coming hostelry.

In marketing terms, this happens all the time as businesses look for new ways of promoting and selling their products and services. Underneath, a lot of what they are doing should be the same: researching products and markets, updating business plans, developing campaigns to advertise and sell products.

What does change is peripheral activity: advertising, promotion and public relations. As one method loses its attraction, another is invented or rediscovered. I call it peripheral because it is often the delivery mechanism or format that changes most, although in no way are these unimportant. These activities can range from the traditional, such as print advertising, to the revolutionary and can often be be mixed and matched to suit specific marketing objectives.

One of the most exciting aspects of marketing is finding new ways of communicating that make you stand out from your competitors. Inevitably, others will catch up and copy you, your target audiences lose interest as new campaigns grow familiar until the hunt begins for the next new method.

Change is constant at this periphery, but the main marketing vision has to remain consistent to achieve the objectives of the business plan. Balancing the consistency of the core business vision with the changing nature of peripheral activity is a challenge, but getting it right is crucial. It means that you can choose from a huge choice of marketing tools, watching the new grow old and at the same time keeping an eye on the horizon for tomorrow’s new tools and opportunities.

What’s important is not to be distracted by peripheral vision from seeing what’s ahead.

There’s nothing new. There’s nothing original.

If social media and micro-blogging are blessings, the curse they bring is of endlessly recycled mediocre ramblings. With the need to feed search engines and provide a continuous supply of articles and content, today’s marketing challenge is how to remain interesting, useful, relevant or entertaining when the option to unfollow, switch off or ignore is so easy to choose.

When every business is scratching around for something original to say, the only realistic option is to relax and find another approach. Most media content – from adverts on television to gags used by comedians - is not new, but to be successful it has to appear fresh. Simply repeating the same unchanged story again and again, as many are doing, is an instant turn-off. It’s like meeting someone at a party who always tells the same joke, which wasn’t that funny the first time round: someone we try to avoid.

Give three people the same speech to read and each one will deliver it differently. Some will read woodenly and make the audience sleepy, others will be mildly interesting, while a few will project the words with the energy and emotion to hold the audience spellbound. That’s what we have to aim for: spectacular delivery.

Technology, tools and content are important, but it’s the manner of delivery that bind them to work together successfully. I’m sure that occasionally the new and original can be found, but much of what we say and read is based on or inspired by what exists already. We can choose to discard it in boredom, trot it out again flatly without enthusiasm or use our creativity to refresh it and relaunch it in a format that enables successful communication.

How do we do that?

By using our personality and creativity to add relevance and interest. What are our customers interested in? What will they find attractive? What will they take notice of? Strip away unnecessary words and details, adapt the story to our clients, our sector, the current climate. Use the tone of voice, language, cultural references with which people identify. The result will be the same story but fresh, relevant, targeted and useful: with more chance of people listening, following and taking notice.