Social Media – The Sales Guy That Won’t Go Away
What is Social Media?
“Social Media refers to images, videos, tools, games, and other media that is delivered through social networks such as Youtube, Digg, Photobucket, Picassa, and many others as well.“
Let me be very clear on one thing; I do not consider the sites themselves as Social Media, but rather Social Networks. I consider Social Media a media-type file or application that is delivered within the Social Networks. Social Media is often used as link-bait to gain a users interest and then direct them to a website with commercial intent.
Social Media has become very valuable to the Internet marketing community, but has been abused by large corporations to the point that many users will avoid social media banner ads. Recently, the market for this medium has been on the upswing by delivering the media in a more reactive manner.
Businesses are realizing that Social Media Spam is becoming an issue and driving the value of Social Media down, so they are introducing the media in a more targeted approach and with a more respectful delivery system.
How Can Social Media Benefit My Campaign?
Social Media will benefit almost any campaign in many ways. Let’s take flash games for instance; these games are played by millions of teens, college kids, and lunch-time office employees everyday, but no one wants to play a game that interferes with their eyes by playing a never-ending demo, no one wants to click-through to a site that has no relevance to their needs, and no one wants to be spammed!
So, let’s say you sell shoes. If I’m a user on Facebook and you have a simple flash game banner ad with a shoe theme, but it was hosted on a hunting group’s homepage or on a mixed martial arts profile, wouldn’t that be Spam? Yeah, I thought so to and that’s exactly why Social Media was losing ground.
Now, if you take that same game and had it hosted within a group about Shoe Lovers, or Shopaholics, or even a New Mom Forum (swollen feet for 10 months means new shoes) you would get a totally different response from me.
Is this spam? No. Why, because you are delivering a product of value to an end-user who wants it. This is the key to any online marketing success, too bad the Big Boys never seem to figure that out…
So, in my humble (yeah right) opinion, I would put a piece or two of interactive media in every campaign. It captures a user when they are most likely to buy…when they’re having fun!