Effective social advertising is less about attaching marketing messages to content and more about being the content. This isn’t new in advertising or direct marketing when you think about it. TV commercials and direct mail as entertainment and art have been popular for years. The difference is that marketing online is so ingrained with advertisers and marketers as a direct marketing channel, they don’t yet understand the opportunities from building community, creating something of value that persists and not just as a campaign, as a way to communicate their message.