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Preparation and community immersion
Marketers know that they cannot simply place a banner ad on Facebook and expect tremendous sales results. Emily Steel, journalist at the Wall Street Journal, recently wrote, "Pity the poor banner ad. Cutting-edge just a few years ago, this pioneer of web advertising is now scorned as hopelessly out-of-date, a neglected stepchild in an era of web video, widgets, mash-ups and social networking."
If standard media buying is not the most effective method for leveraging social media, how can you prepare and find a way to engage users?
"You must do your homework and understand the specific community's message is just as important as communicating your brand's message," Marchese explained. "Find the overlap between your brand's message and the social media you wish to advertise within."
"Creators and loyalists of social media are driven by personal expression and interpersonal communication," I added. "So you have to respect this at the very least and then determine a way to enhance their actions."
Across markets, social networking users consistently expressed their desire for brands and organizations to treat them less like customers, and more like friends.
Before you spend a great deal on one campaign idea, first test messaging and the strategy within the community, then prepare multiple messages for distribution.
We then walked through several important tactics advertisers should use: experiment with letting go of the message, don't try to create a new message (instead, borrow or match the message of the medium), and remember the buzz worthy theme of 2007: widgets, widgets, widgets. For instance, Nike's "Team Elite" branding widget has been popular on MySpace.
"Since social media is participatory by nature, the advertising should be also," I said. "Focus on creating message 'pull' through story-telling, versus pushing your product or service onto consumers."
Examples of social media campaigns that "pulled" in users to participate include Yoplait's banner ad invitation for women to share their healthy lifestyle goals, last year's call for secrets to spark buzz about "The Number 23" film, Hilton Hotels/Homewood Suites' call for vacation photos on DivineCaroline.com, and AT&T's "My Video Battle" contest on hi5.com.
Measuring results
How can you determine if your campaign was successful or not? Measuring the results of a social media campaign must be aligned according to your initial goal (not just traffic or the number of "friends" added, for example). It is fair to compare the results to alternative branding methods.
A report and study commissioned by MySpace, Isobar and Carat questioned, "What if the measurement model of value isn't just a message sent from a business to a consumer (B2C) where the impact ends with the consumer who receives it? What if the initial communication is B2C and then the message takes on a life of its own as consumers use it, forward it and share it C2C (consumer to consumer)?"
The report claims that social media marketing is distinguished from traditional marketing because the B2C marketing is only part of the impact; there's also C2C impact. This value is created by two paths: consumers visiting the brand's custom community and consumers who don't visit the custom community, but hear about the brand through their social network.
It's time someone created an effective metric that measures the strength of this viral marketing exposure through social communities, instead of making marketers rely on metrics based on ads served.
What else is next in social media?
Expect to see leading-edge and influential consumers watching TV within social networks, visiting more outbound links, and finding new ways to express their own personal "brand."
Rebecca Weeks is director of business development, Real Girls Media. Read full bio.
