Tuesday, March 25th, 2008
“We will look back to 2008 and think it archaic and quaint that we had to go to a destination like Facebook or LinkedIn to be social,” says Charlene Li at Forrester Research, a consultancy. Future social networks, she thinks, “will be like air. They will be anywhere and everywhere we need and want them to be.” - The Economist
As much as I’m a marketer and would love to believe this, I think it’s just flat inaccurate.
This prediction completely discounts the fact that part of what makes the Internet the Internet, is because of commerce. Commerce exists by the nature of creating significant value to others.
Because of this, there will always be newer networks with newer technologies. Newer networks with different demographics. Newer networks with varying costs (not just currency) to participate.
Whenever I see claims like this, I come back to other functions that exist due to the fundamentally social nature of humans: BBS systems and message boards. While certainly widespread, they are separate and distinct in their own markets. You do not see my message board posts on Yahoo!’s customizable home page.
Will there be aggregators, such as with RSS and e-mail? Absolutely. But they will be separate functions and networks of their own.
Is it archaic that we go to coffee shops to be social, when we can make coffee or hang out with others in our own homes? What about going to restaurants to eat food, when we can eat in our own homes?
The reality is that a portal exists because people want disparate information aggregated. A social network exists because people want to socialize online. Search engines exist because people want to find things more easily.
There’s a reason why Starbucks isn’t known for their dinner meals.
Monday, March 10th, 2008
This kept me up late last night. Really. That’s how awesome I am.
I was thinking about the constant comparison between Social Networks and Search. How I keep hearing people say that Facebook might be the next Google because of how it’s going to directly generate huge revenues for so many businesses.
But I think that’s an overly-simplified comparison to the point of inaccuracy. The businesses are completely different, the financial upsides are completely different, and the impact that each of the businesses directly has on businesses is completely different.
Searchers engage in an active process to find solutions to very specific needs.
Social network users engage in an active process to socialize. It is an extension of one’s identity through their own interpretation and through the details of their social connections and interactions.
One directly correlates with the purpose of business, while another directly correlates with the purpose of identity. That is the fundamental concern for determining how a business is to integrate with social network users.
The comparison that Social Networks will change the way that we interact online, to a similar degree that search has, is undoubtedly true, as people spend more and more and more time on Social Networks that continue to see double-digit growth, month over month.
The problem in the comparison, though, lies in the expectations that people (mostly marketers) have in the way that search and social media benefit their businesses.
Last week, I kept seeing an article get passed around on Twitter and various blogs about ads on MySpace and incredibly low clickthrough rates. This isn’t new news, but I often ask myself; what do people expect from a platform of that nature?
Social Networks are like TV and radio: they resonate with passive observers in a passive way. Advertising through Social Media platforms via banners must be done with the same strategy: Get as many targeted impressions as possible, align your message with the desires of your market, be there when they are wanting and willing and able to accept your offer, and until then, continually let them know you are there by consistently reinforcing your message as a solution to a problem they may have now or in the future.
As search marketers, we have prided ourselves on our ability to count every penny out and every penny in. We have gladly accepted the obligation of producing a return on investment. Now that our attention is shifting to Social Media, we continue to do more of the same and expect the same strategies, tactics, and opportunities to be available.
Those same opportunities that exist in Search do not exist in Social Networks (Dare I say: all of Social Media?). It is a wholly different ecosystem. There are different rules and capabilities. With that, old offers are irrelevant and new offers become possible.
The marketers that understand this, are the ones who will be designing very different strategies here. They will see new objectives and opportunities that Search doesn’t offer. The passive resonance of banner advertising and performance is completely irrelevant to the nature of Social Media’s active participants.
If you truly want to maximize your Social Media campaigns, start asking different questions. Design new and different offers for your market. Facilitate the interaction rather than directing it, or merely being a billboard alongside of it. Most of all, allow yourself to have new (if any) expectations of the platform.
The marketers who understand this are the marketers that are teaming up with developers to understand these new opportunities. They’re working together to develop the necessary applications to facilitate the interactions that Social Networks now allow.
Most importantly, they’re creating new possibilities that never existed before.
And, finally, they’re not counting the pennies out and the pennies in.
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