AN INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL MEDIA AND SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING - 09.22.2008
What is social media marketing?
Social Media Marketing is the act of a brand spreading its message through various social technologies. Right now, it's a failed concept because brands are limited in their approach to social media marketing; they engage in practices that are alienating to users, and do not provide useful services for consumers.
What are the opportunities of social media?
Social media is part of the same "sharing" meme that has brought us the open-source movement, open APIs, Wikipedia and other examples of mass collaboration. An opportunity exists for "sharing" to penetrate into new areas of society and business via new innovations in social media. Opportunities also exist in the creation of new business models in which companies "outsource" tasks (i.e. marketing, R&D) to consumers. There are also opportunities for brands to develop new online social structures that complement those already found offline and also opportunities to monitor, control and influence reputation on the Web.
How has social media changed marketing and communications?
Social media has changed the balance of power between marketers and consumers. Consumers now have the power, not marketers. Once marketers release their messages "into the wild," they no longer have as much control over what happens to that message. Instead, consumer ecosystems have the power. Marketing + Communications is no longer a "broadcast" or "mass media" model. Consumers expect a dialogue with marketers, and reward those companies that subscribe to this philosophy.
How should a major consumer brand use Social Media? What are some practical tips for senior marketing management?
Social Media falls between the cracks inside many consumers’ brands because it is so new and it is not funded properly. Inside the major corporate agencies, they are just getting their heads around the web and haven't event started to understand this medium, nor how they can make money off of it. StrawberryFrog believes that a consumer brand should maximize this new marketing tool by being a pioneer, a leader in this area. Here are some practical steps to achieve this.
THE FUTURE OF SOCIAL MEDIA AND SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
What is the future of Facebook?
Over the long term, it's hard to believe that the phenomenal growth of Facebook is sustainable. It is up to Facebook to continually innovate in order to ensure that it is not a fad. Certainly, the inherent social networking functionality that Facebook represents is not a fad. If you look at all the big Internet players (Google, IAC, Yahoo, Microsoft), it looks like each one has a unique viewpoint of what the future of this social networking functionality should look like.
What social media tools are working well?
Tagging (via del.icio.us) - it's easy, cheap and infinitely flexible. It helps me organize all kinds of content for all kinds of projects and is accessible wherever I go. People like these lightweight, flexible applications. I am also a fan of Google Social which enables you to connect to all social media easily. having great relationships with Google, we can bring Goole to the table as a partner in a new social media venture. In the future, information will become more meaningful, more automatic and more tailored to each of us. Web sites will transform into Web services. The "open API" will become the de facto standard for tech companies.
What’s the longer term future for social media?
Taking a big picture view, we've reached an interesting inflection point in the history of the Internet. Last month, China and the U.S. reached parity in the number of overall Internet users, with China now on a pace to overtake the U.S. by the end of 2008. What happens to the Internet and social media when China is setting the agenda, and not the U.S.?
Digital marketers typically are early adopters when it comes to using new social media tools. The problem is that most non-tech companies are not. That's where the most successful marketers earn their money - figuring out solutions that are cutting-edge, but not too cutting-edge as to alienate corporate stakeholders.
While digital marketers are early adopters, they also tend to follow a herd mentality. When certain technologies or tools are "hot," there is a tendency to pile into those areas, without necessarily keeping the best interests of their clients in mind.
Prepared by Chip Walker, Ilana Bryant and Scott Goodson of StrawberryFrog
THE CURRENT BUZZ IN THE ADVERTISING WORLD - 09.25.2008
... is how to advertise effectively on Social Network Sites to generate consistent and generous projected revenues streams. Linkedin can charge $75 dollars per thousand page views, and Facebook can charge only $.36 cents per thousand page views. Linkedin can target their demographics whereas Facebook has a data base much larger, and relies on quantity. The other dilemma agencies face is, where to advertise on Social Networks, without being intrusive. An extreme example would be a group of interior designers getting advertising from Good Year tires!! As in any form of advertising targeting is the most effective, not only in response but in branding and name recognition.
VMG design of Spacebookbiz has the answer to Social Media Advertising and branding. With each industry and business that is featured on Spacebookbiz (conceivably millions) consumers, vendors, business owners, media, advertisers, will all have an opportunity to join the first ever all business social networks. When a user surfs to a particular site, they have the ability to join that business social network, or that industries social network. They may not join but they will see the comments of other consumers and even be able to leave a comment. Now a regular customer can communicate with everyone associated with that company or industry, along with other interested customers. Not only does this open at least two social networks per profile but the advertising streams are unlimited and targeted!! Business owners and advertisers will have real time accesses to how consumers react to a new product, branding is easily set and identified. Spacebookbiz will be able to capture data from virtually all users and build an invaluable data base. The amount of page views a user goes to could easily average as high as MySpace (21 page views per unique visitor).
Social Network leader MySpace has all well known musicians profiled, along with millions of people from every walk of life, as will Spacebook have all well known large and small retail establishments, first through out the USA and very soon globally.
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