First A New Mindset is Needed posted by K.D. Paine on Brian Solis PR 2.0 blog mentioned that most Public Relations campaigns are based on "hits", including campaigns where Social Media is a component. Katie Paine goes on to suggest advertising as we know it, is dead, and we should focus on finding influencers who will, though their own opinions, affect their friends and followers ...
.. in today's environment, most decisions are influenced to a much greater degree by whatever your followers on Twitter, friends on Facebook recommend or what Google search delivers than they are by whatever ads pop up. Trying to decide what flat screen TV to buy, where to go for vacation, what movie to see, or where to make reservations for dinner, chances are you'll either ask your friends on Facebook or Twitter for advice, or search on Google for reviews.
But the problem with that .... it's a good idea - but that data provided by Facebook, Twitter, to name two that I'm familiar with, doesn't support doing those kinds of outreach. Sure, Facebook is collecting the information - but they're not sharing it - and what you get via Lexicon and their advertising tools, at best, is aggregate level information - useful - but not enough to do what Katie suggests.
It's almost as if, on one hand, marketers and advertisers, driven by supportive businesses open to change, need to adopt Social Media. On the other side of it, the "Identity Management platforms" (isn't that what Facebook really is?) need to figure out a way of allowing targeting of influentials without cutting their own throats by violating privacy issues.
For example, Facebook's Lexicon data is a year old, you can't manipulate the choices - and the charts actually seem basic, not nearly as useful as they could be. While Facebook has the information on who "influences" who - or would or has been an influencer (for any event on Facebook - or, almost piece of data) there's not easy way to get at it. In fact, Unbound Technology, has gone, as far as anyone can, to find influencers who materially influence others, than anyone else I've seen - look at my earlier post and video interview on Unbound Technology - Social Media mining interview with Brian Killen.
The other bit of information came from Joe Marchese over at Online Spin MediaPost blog - who issued a $1 Million Dollar Social Media Marketing Challenge (see below):
" ..... I am willing to issue a challenge to any marketer willing to, over a given period (minimum three months), spend an equal amount through social media and any "traditional" media outlet at scale (minimum of $1 million on each):If the ROI from social media is not equal to that from traditional media, my company will deliver free media until the difference is made up. This means, if you were planning on spending at least $2 million in media next quarter, this would be a potential no-lose situation and a great social media experiment. In addition, I would even be willing to pay for the research, up to an agreed-upon cost. Here are the ground rules:
Good idea, but I wonder if someone who spends $2 million dollars on a media buy could, materially, find good outlets to spend $2 million, during the same period, on Facebook Ads, Blogger outreach, Viral Videos (hoping they'd spread), Social Networking sites, Twitter Marketing, just to name a few - probably I'm touching the surface. Joe goes on to say....
Why am I so confident that the ROI of the social media campaign will deliver? Because CPMs are a lie. If you take a $30 CPM rate for television, factor in TiVo and people who aren't paying attention, then factor in a rate of message waste (males watching tampon ads), the true CPM is much, much higher.
Circling back on both K.D.Paine and Joe Marchese's posts - I want Social Media to succeed as much as anyone else, but it needs to be addressed, not just educationally, via getting companies to spend money on Social Media - but platforms like Facebook - have to provide information that have, up to now, been unable or unwilling to do.
If we could, in fact, really target people who naturally like a certain razor or certain type of wine, on Facebook, and find out how many of their friends, look to each other when making purchasing decisions - on a micro level, not just on an aggregate level, we might be able to do that large, $2 million Social Media buy - but if someone had a $2 million dollar Social Media spend they had to unload in 3 months, and it wasn't Facebook or MySpace ads, I bet they'd have a hard time finding enough outlets to even spend the money - much less, deliver the results.
In just goes to show, that most problems in life need to be solved at multiple, levels, at the same time.
However, I think we'll arrive at a point, in the next two years, where you will be able to do a $2 million dollar Social Media campaign in a short period of time and see results that are better than what your getting now, by spending it in other ways - and don't count Search Marketing - as Social Media - because it's not (at least, not in the way it's structured now).
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