Go GagaHow to get your Gaga on.

Iin the olden days--say, four or five years ago--marketing your business meant crafting a snappy one-liner, offering a 20 percent discount on a glossy direct mail flyer, then sitting back and hoping for the long-held standard 2 percent return. But even that wasn't guaranteed. And measurable? Eh, not so much.

Back then, customer service and marketing were two different things. That was a long time ago. We are now in the colorful, quirky era of Twitter, Facebook, Lady Gaga andBetty White. It's a place where the newly minted hipness ofMiracle Whipbumps into the classic-turned-on-its-ear relevance ofOld Spice. It's as much customer service as it is fancy logos. And it is, above all, a place where a brand not only understands community, but actually is community.