The Social Media Advantage

If you've been paying attention to social media as a branding tool, you know about its amazing ability to help you, and your company, to form relationships. These relationships help to ensure that you have customers that will think of you first during their purchase decisions.

Unfortunately, many businesses still have not taken the necessary steps to effectively use their social media. Many have Facebook pages and Twitter accounts, but they use them strictly for self promotion. Status updates and tweets, which they use to let consumers know about new products and deals, are their primary concern.

The problem is that this way of thinking is outdated. It relies on a method of communication that travels in only one direction; from the business to the consumer. Social media, however, allows for much more. It is a place where two way communication is possible. Not only can a business communicate with its customers, but the customers have their say as well.

The key then becomes listening. It is absolutely necessary to be aware of what people are saying about your company or your product. It's really like free, and simplified, research. You see what people find favorable and attractive, as well as what they dislike. Based on this knowledge, you can make changes that will make a purchase more desirable.

Another benefit is that many customers are more likely to complain on social media. When this occurs, the source is easily identifiable. Since you know who has a problem, and what their problem is, you have a much better chance of responding properly.

Remember, social media can be a great marketing tool, but it must be used properly. This powerful medium should be used to form and maintain relationships.

Life is Hard. Advertising is Harder.

Advertising is developing an increasing need to be entertaining. Gainging viewers used to be as simple as putting an ad on network TV. Most people were watching TV, and there really weren't enough shows to make the audience difficult to reach.

Now, not only do we have massive segmentation of the audience, from magazines to 500 channel TV packages, we also have an increase in power for the consumer. Sure they always had the option to change the channel, but now they can zip through them or zap past them all together with their DTV recorders. There is so much interactivity on the web that anything else hardly catches a second glance.

This makes it absolutely necessary to find new ways to capture the audience's attention and keep them engaged. Another challenge to this is keeping trust. When you are advertising energy drinks or spray on scents, it isn't as much of a problem. You can show something very comical, and people will remember your advertisement and your product in a positive way. If you have a more serious product, like car insurance for example, it can be a little tricker. Humorous insurance advertisements have been shown to capture the audiences attention. What it does not do, however, is establish the brand as trustworthy or even differentiate the brand from others, aside from the possibility of not falling into the "stuffy auto company" category.

In anycase, advertising is getting more difficult. Greater barriers are being faced to engage the audience and persuade them into action.

I love a challenge.

Cell Phone Applications

Applications for cell phones are becoming an excellent way for promoters to send their message directly to the consumers. With the popularity of smartphones, it is becoming much easier to reach people through this method.

One of the major benefits is that with every application downloaded, you learn about something they are interested in. If a consumer downloads a restaurant finder, this would be a great place to put an ad for, you got it, restaurants.

Also, it helps because the message is sent directly to one individuals screen. This makes it much simpler to send different messages to different people. Since everyone has slightly different preferences and attitudes, sending various individually targeted messages is a very beneficial practice.

Research

Research is necessary for any advertising campaign. It is necessary to find out what issues are preventing any particular product or service from achieving greater sales, or greater sales growth. It can also show you how the competition is interacting with consumers.

The problem with research, however, is that its answers are speculative, but are not treated as such. Consumers can provide excellent ideas, but these ideas are only a starting point to help jump start the agenda planning.

Research is not an excuse for poor advertising. Just because a focus group in Idaho led you to believe that your campaign would be received with open arms, does not take away personal accountability.

In conclusion, research is necessary. It is a step in the process, a means to an end, but not an end in and of itself.

Content this!

In the old days, it was simple. Advertisers paid programs for Ad space based on the number of viewers that particular program had. Now, however, technology allows the advertisers to track how many of the program's viewers also watch the commercials.

This works out very well for the advertisers because now they don't have to pay for people who are flipping the channel as soon as they are given a chance to reach them. What I find to be interesting, though, is how this effects television.

It is common knowledge that "content is king". If you want someone to engage with your newspaper, magazine, book, website, radio or television program, you have to have good content to keep them coming. Now, television programs will not only have to have good enough content to attract viewers, they will also have to make sure that their content attracts the type of viewers who will stick around to watch the Ads.

Southern Comfort goes all in online

Southern Company has decided to focus their advertising efforts online. That's actually an understatement. Their decision wasn't simply to make online advertising the most important aspect of their advertising campaigns. They actually decided to make it the only form of media they use for promotion.

This might be a very smart move for Southern Comfort. The internet is superior to television in that it is much easier to find a target audience. This is especially true when the target audience is between the ages of 21-29,which is exactly the age group Southern Comfort is going after. Magazines are a good way to reach specific consumers, but the reach leaves something to desire. Also, advertising online is significantly less expensive. They will be able to produce many more promotional pieces for the same price.

Advertising alcohol on television is definately restricted. Most networks only allow it during certain times of the evening, and other competitor's Ads will be run at that same time.

I do, however, question their all in method. While I agree that the most of the advertising budget should be dedicated to the internet, I feel that traditional advertising is still effective. Taking your name out of the many that are shown during broadcast's alcohol advertising period will only make competitive brands easier to remember.

If you like the Pope, then you'll love buying my product

In an article by Henry Chu of the Los Angeles Times,I learned that Vatican Radio, which follows the movements of the Pope, has decided to start selling Ad space after 80 years of Ad-free operation. This must have been an extremely difficult decision for the Vatican to make. I'm sure the consideration of the ethical dilemma of a sort of "holy endorsement" isn't one that was taken lightly.
This made me think about what the future will hold for advertisers. If a fully functioning religious authority has become open to advertising dollars, then no one will consider themselves too high and mighty to indulge in the profits.
Schools might consider selling Ad space from their walls. I would hope this would only be for high school and colleges, but seeing it at elementary schools wouldn't be suprising. They could even start hosting brand sponsored peprallies and sports events.
If your convincing enough, you just might be able to get people to sell Ad space on their cars. It's already been done on race cars. Why not use regular people's cars. I bet that could end up being very cheap and fairly effective (although driving habits should probably be taken into consideration).
Of course I'm mostly joking, but only mostly...

At least we don't have to keep watching those car commercials

It's no secret that our current recession has had a dramatic impact on the auto industry. We have seen companies teetering on the edge of destruction, we have seen the government loan these companies money simply to keep them afloat, and we have seen car lots close down.
While these companies struggle to make a profit, many of them have decided to cut back on their advertising. Of course, we know that advertising during a recession is extremely important (and it often helps companies to become the leaders of their respective industries once the recession is over). Nevertheless, many companies were spending massive amounts of money to build brand awareness. Their focus now shifts to building sales, and, as such, much of their promotional budget will be cut.
Some of the companies, which were bought by the U.S. government, now have the ability to back out of advertising contracts that were previously negotiated. This is because they are considered to be new companies now that they have switched ownership. Others are simply not buying advertising space like they used to.
One of the more interesting effects of the auto industry's drop in advertising is in broadcast. Their decline in broadcast advertising has left a massive void to fill. This fact coupled with the 20% decline in rates for broadcast advertising since 2007 has brought local businesses to invest in broadcast ads. This will most likely benefit the local businesses more than the broadcast stations, however, because it takes a lot of local businesses to make up for auto dealers that advertised with them in the past.

We could trick them into liking it!

I don't know how many people are aware of this, as it happened a long time ago, but an old Sony Ericsson marketing campaign I heard about recently seemed like it could possibly be the worst way to promote an item. Ever.
In an effort to promote their cell phones, the company hired actors that were meant to seem cool to their target market. Rather than film or photograph the actors using the cell phones, they sent them to various locations including bars and tourist locations. At the bar, they might take a picture of you. After they show you picture, they can tell you about all the wonderful features of their phone. At tourist locations, they might ask you to take a picture of their group.
Of course, if you asked them point blank if they were actors, they would tell you that you were. As if that absolves any ethical violations. This is not just bad for the mislead consumers, but also for the company. A marketing campaign like this is certain to attract media attention. People are going to hear about it, and they will not be happy. They will see your company as manipulative and uncaring. Building healthy mutually beneficial relationships between customers is a must. If you don't have trust, you don't have a sale.

Consumer power

The use of the internet by consumers is something that has interested companies for a long time now. While it does work as a very effective mass media tool, it also creates an environment where businesses have to pay more attention to the individual. This is because people have as much reach and power over the web as companies do. If a person believes they have purchased a poor quality service or product, or that they have been treated unfairly, they can easily express their discontent to a large audience with the use of the internet. Whether through the use of facebook, twitter, or blogs, most people can get on the internet and express their opinions to followers who are sure to listen. For this reason, businesses are going to have to be more sensitive to each individual's needs