You’re in the technology business, so it follows that you should be leveraging the latest technology as part of your business strategy. But are you? From creating a styled, personalized brand via social media or exploring user-generated stories as the new customer testimonial, your brand needs to be highly engaged in the digital landscape.

This month, there are two articles that speak directly to this new paradigm. The Trends article, “Selling to Churches? Create Social Media Campaigns,” and the Future articles “The End of Hype” both give practical, you-can-do-this right now principles and actions items for your brand to create real-time engagement with your tribe, your prospects and their peers.

The Internet changed the playing field and has fundamentally shifted the balance of power into the hands of the content creators and conversation starters. A church tech director at a church of 500 can have as much visibility and credibility as a mega-church tech director. A small start up firm can build a loyal, highly-engaged base that generates more leads than 20th Century era advertising. It all comes down to a strategic view and plan for engagement.

There was a time when your brand name alone, or the success of a product, could give you all the momentum you needed to compete. Today, the rate of change in technology has eclipsed the power of the simple advertisement and leveled the playing field for all entrants — large or small.

If you want to compete in a 21st Century digital world, it’s imperative that your brand recognize the importance of speaking with, not at, a market and building a rapport with the individual people that make up your target audience. It is no longer sufficient to treat them exclusively as “the audience.”

It’s not a nuanced subtlety to change how brands communicate; it’s the new normal of effective brand management and tribe building.

What say you?