Brand managers are faced with a choice that only Hobson would appreciate: they can either spend more in all media to re-aggregate their mass audience or they can slide down the long tail of dwindling market-share.

There is one alternative though and that’s making the consumer your media. Yes, it’s old fashioned word-of-mouth but with a socially-networked-wiki-twist.

Today the circle of your consumers’ friends is not limited to their neighbors or colleagues. Potentially you could tap into an audience that ranges from hundreds to hundreds of thousands as your consumers digitally-network their way across the planet.

It isn’t actually that hard to do either.

You can engage your consumers with entertaining content. You can reward them for recommendations or for loyalty (that’s called putting your media money where your customer retention budget is). You can let them into your development so they feel part of process. You can treat them well, like answering their questions when they have them. You can solve a problem if they have one swiftly and politely. You could even make your product or service really useful and make sure it doesn’t break down.

In fact, if you start treating your customers as though they are the brightest stars in your organization, you might not need a media budget at all. Then again, if you want to continue to foist boring advertising and poorly designed products on the public, you’d better get the check book out.