What Is The Definition Of Marketing?

I must disagree with Shel Israel regarding his use of the term marketing, in his post, "Two Social Media Camps in the Enterprise." While I agree that many people think of marketing as the process of customer acquisition and customer loyalty, sales if you will. I am not prepared to abandon the definition of the word to scorn. I say that marketing is at its essence the process of listening to your customers to make a better product, so they will buy more.

Shel, I know I am being pedantic here and focusing too much on words, that we do indeed mean the same thing when you use social media, and I use the original definition of marketing. Yet, as a marketer I feel someone must defend the term and the profession. God knows, few people are, marketing people are not just advertisers and sales people, marketers are that, but marketers are also market researchers, product managers and customer service staff.

While many might think of marketing in a traditional way as you suggest, marketing is really the business strategy that fuels social media, rather than social media being the strategy that has bested marketing.