I always seem to have a great mini-vacation on Memorial Day weekend and am forever grateful to the men and women who have served our country and especially those who've made the ultimate sacrifice, so we can have a better life. It's incredible when you think that this holiday dates back to 1868 as a day to honor Union Soldiers in the Civil War who gave their lives.
Honestly, all I can think about is sitting by the pool and enjoying a good book by the refreshing water with my computer tucked far away in my hotel room. I keep asking myself, why did I schedule a meeting and a conference call on a short holiday weekend? Am I all too eager to talk about B2B Video Platforms, Social Media or business media strategy? Probably not, but it's my little, small, no tiny sacrifice in order to meet the needs of my clients and perspective clients because I care.
As hard as it will be this weekend to get away from my all consuming work life (though the pool and ocean might help speed that up ;-), I will try not to think about corporate branding online or maybe just a little bit today, as I have one last meeting on my way out of town with a clothing manufacturer. They are looking at ways to create effective social media advertising for their brand and they have just the right brand to make that happen.
If you haven't taken the time to reflect on this holiday because of your last minute pile of work, please take a moment to do so, as you too will be humbled by our great nation and those who have served and currently serve....
This past Thursday I spoke on a panel moderated by Joyce Schwarz, which included Deborah Perry Piscione of Bettyconfidential.com, William Alena of myyearbook.com, Aki Hashmi of Allvoices.com, Rebecca Weeks of Realgirlsmedia.com, Maura Welch of Weeworld.com, and Mimi Jakobovits of Musicane.com. The title of the session was "The Web, Social Media and Advertising" but I think we covered everything from: Social Media Advertising to Social Media Communities and finding ways of monetizing content.
One of the things I took away from the panel is that now more than ever, there are opportunities to monetize content in interesting ways. Knowing your businesses unique position or offering in the marketplace is a critical first step. In addition, a well thought out business media strategy utilizing corporate branding online will surely make for a good start. From a strategy perspective, you should consider syndication, as well as bringing sponsorship into a niche community that serves the brand well. Weeworld is a good example of a company that has a very unique way of offering brands a fun/virtual environment to engage audience online. Further, it not only has a unique destination site but it also has a great strategy for reaching audiences on other sites.
As we are all aware, there are no silver bullets when it comes to Social Media Advertising or monetization, so a great place to start is:
1. Knowing what your audience and your value proposition
2. Create valuable partnerships because you can't possibly do it alone
3. Create a plan that Brands can clearly understand that takes advantage of syndication and existing social networks
Starting with a good Social Media Platform can certainly help speed your efforts to market but that is only a beginning. Look at what other successful companies are doing can help add tremendous value in knowing your market and its leaders. The good news according to a recent Forrester Marketing Forum is that "Marketing budgets are following the innovation trail — social media spending in the US will grow from $716 million this year to more than $3.1 billion in 2014, a 34 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) - see the entire article at: http://au.sys-con.com/node/934450.
Hope to be reading about your success story in the very near future...
I'm not sure if this is a sad day or the extension of a brave new world for social media!
This week we have seen Gordon Brown do a complete U Turn on his pre election pledge to: 'always speak to the house before leaking or briefing' the press.
Gordie god bless him thought it right and proper to release the governments (his) position and new policy on UK MP's expenses, direct to Youtube, not even to the UK Press!!! - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAspEPVQECE
Whilst we can commend our Govt's move to improve their corporate branding online, by utilising Youtube, almost as the labour party's personal social business networking tool, one has to wonder the effect this could have on the wider Internet?
Users of social media or social business networks do so because they are intrinsically interested in the community and the content that it revolves around, they are engaged with and enthused by, the environment, I can't help but feel that none of these attributes were paramount in the Labour parties motivations for using the channel.
For me this is just the tip of the iceberg, with corporates and politicians alike blundering through social networks, such as: Facebook, Myspace and the like, often treating users as naive, on line novices, rather than the mature, web savvy users that they are.
We see time and again corporates and their media agency's, shoving unmodified TV ads and general Business to Business video and business to consumer video into social media environments with little or no appreciation of the medium which they are attempting to utilise.
If commercial entities truly wish to improve their corporate branding online via various business branding online techniques, then they must begin to learn how to truly engage with their target audience.
They must create messaging that truly engages with their audience, messaging must not only inform and educate, but it must add to the community's 'conversation' and ultimately bring real value to the user.
My fear is: that with more and more people expressing 'social' fatigue, where we are all becoming more and more time poor, then corporate activity of the kind we have seen to date, will ultimately demotivate users, to the point where we just wont be bothered to filter out the noise.
I guess time will tell
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