Remember the movie Jerry Maguire, a 1996 film starring Tom Cruise, Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Renée Zellweger? The famous tag line was "Show Me The Money!"
Many are shouting the same thing as it applies to our time and efforts
with today's social web.When preparing to create a new post we do a lot
of site surfing and reading to get balanced perspectives on any one
topic. Literally 99.99% of the blogs we land on has ads, including our
own. However, many blogs look like " a crowded highway of billboard ads" and sometimes it is even hard to find the "road" to a post of interest given the "clutter of billboards".
There are even billboards on blogs promoting ads for blogs. There is the infamous Google "adsense" and there are a host of ad aggregators chasing bloogers with the promise of higher rates per clickthrough with ads relevant to your blogs topic. All of the major social networks are supported by advertising models. But are readers getting tired of online ads? If your a new blogger thinking your going make a living from advertising revenue, think again.
What Does The Data Say?
In the March 10th issue of Business Week, Catherine Holahan, with Spencer E. Ante write: Google, along with Yahoo! (YHOO) and Microsoft (MSFT), has long maintained that online advertising is the ultimate in pay for performance, because advertisers only pay if someone clicks on an ad.
But the correlation between clicks and sales is becoming less predictable at the same time Web surfers are clicking on fewer ads. That has Google, Microsoft, and others scrambling to develop compelling alternatives for advertisers. "The novelty of clicking is gone," says Mike Leo, CEO of Operative, consultant and software developer for digital media companies.
Consider the results of one study, released on Feb. 12 by comScore, media agency Starcom USA, and the ad network Tacoda, owned by AOL (TWX). It found that just 6% of Web surfers account for more than 50% of all clicks on display ads, such as the rectangular banner ads that stretch across the top of many Web pages. In addition, most of these heavy clickers earn less than $40,000 a year, and they account for less than 15% of the actual shopping online. "What we have seen is that optimizing for [clicks] alone tends to get you an audience with a propensity to click," says Daniel Jaye, Tacoda's president.
Microsoft is also pushing beyond clicks. On Feb.25, the company unveiled an initiative that allows advertisers effectively to pay based on the number of people who watch a video, provide their e-mail address, or take some other desired action. "Basically we give our customers the ability to create these models to define what's important," says John Chandler, principal analyst at Atlas, part of Microsoft's ad network.
Google's U.S. search ads declined 12% from the fourth quarter of last year
So Where is the Money?
So to answer the question lets go back to the theme of the movie Jerry Maguire. At the end of the movie Jerry's "system" of achieving "results" was altered significantly. Instead of manipulating processes, forcing deals and screaming "show me the money" he changed. His change resulted in a life more fulfilled than he ever had before because his values changed. His values were changed by new relationships. The new relationships altered his thinking and his processes significantly. He learned to give of himself and thus he gained. Subsequently, as the movie portrays, his results, both economic and relational, were better and larger than ever before.
In the Relationship Economy gain is driven by the value of our relationships and the quality of our transactions. Economic rewards are created by the "system" we build to create new relationships and new markets. Economic reward comes in many different forms. As the Relationship Economy matures "Seeing the Money" will be evident to those that understand the values that create it. Money has value but it is not obtainable until we understand and value relationships first.
Show you the money? Show me the value.
What say you?
