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Advanced social media - amateurs and agencies need not apply

May 24, 2012 | Online Marketing

Advanced social media, going beyond the “like” or the display ad, is something all advertisers should set their sights on now. They should learn how to earn the right to have conversations and relationships with customers. Go from one-way “storytelling” to many-way “socializing.

Rirst we have to move away from thinking of Facebook as yet another channel to blast an ad out to a ton of people “at scale.” Brand advertisers that are used to asking for reach and frequency metrics continued to ask for “number of impressions.” Facebook was happy to oblige, and take their money by displaying several hundred billion ad impressions per month.

Next, brands talk about finding influencers and then having them talk about the brand and advocate it to their friends and followers. That’s all nice in theory, but why would anyone talk about you -- e.g. a toothpaste brand -- all day long? They won’t. However, if you enable your users to help you amplify something that they already believe in or are passionate about -- think, cause related marketing -- they may indeed want to talk about it with their friends.

When the message comes from a friend, and not the advertiser, users tend to trust it more and are open to reading it. That’s why Facebook, Twitter and the like are trying to insert themselves into our timeline and feeds via “sponsored stories” and “sponsored tweets.” But unfortunately these brand advertisers are not our friends, and users are usually ticked off.

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