in a budget-constrained environment, the best thing an advertiser can do is shift more attention (notice, I didn’t say money) to social marketing and stimulate social actions among target users and customers. While paid media used to just get people to some place (like a website), social marketing is about stimulating social actions — so the people actually do something — share, rate, comment, recommend, etc. These actions lead to an accumulation of value over time such that future visitors will get the benefit of all of the actions that went before (e.g. I only watch the highest rated or most viewed videos on YouTube; I don’t have to wade through and find the good stuff myself). Furthermore, social actions are free to the advertiser — think “advocacy.” When real people carry the message forward to their friends, it is free amplification for the advertiser — social amplification.