The Relationship Economy will usher in a new era of mediums for advertisers seeking to match their product/service with an affinity of YOUR Brands preferences and privileges. As individuals further the creation of “their brand”, on numerous social networks, their connections and conversations provide specific data which identifies an audience with specific affinities to branded products and services, an advertisers dream for target marketing.
The Pundits Perspective
Market research firm Compete has recently released a report on the convergence of social networking and e-commerce. The report, “s-commerce: beyond MySpace and YouTube,” finds consumer visits to social networking sites have increased 109 percent since January 2004, and page views per visitor have grown by 414 percent in the same time period. “Social networkers” spend less time viewing traditional media and have more discretionary income and a greater penchant for online shopping than non-social networking site users.
“Some marketers are going to advertise on MySpace and YouTube because they are the two easier places to go. That will be an obvious choice. But the return on investment isn’t going to be any better than traditional customer acquisition campaigns,” he said. “It’s stupid to just advertise on MySpace and assume you are a social marketer. The better thing to do is get your customers associated with your brand.” On the other hand, launching a branded social network means competing for a dwindling slice of end users’ attention.
Compete found visitors to social networking services are currently involved with an average of three such sites, and that these would only be willing to add a fourth Web site before losing interest.”Already people are starting to become social-saturated. For marketers, there are not going to be as many opportunities as they think there are. So they need to be more creative.” The key, DiMarco says, is to create social Web sites as part of a brand designed to track customers and listen to them at the same time.
THE PUNDITS ARE MISSING A VERY BIG POINT! IT IS ABOUT YOUR BRAND, NOT THEIRS.
As written about earlier, when you have your own personal network portal you will be controlling your own network of connections, articles, news, videos, documents and related media you want on your personal network portal. As an individual with certain affinities the data from YOUR network will clearly indicate what YOUR network is inclined to purchase at any given time. The advertising opportunism is not by having a brand set up THEIR own network rather by forming a relationship with YOUR network. The brand is YOU and the advertisers could win by having a direct relationship with you, if you want them to. If YOUR network creates traffic, connections to like minded individuals and businesses then YOUR network is a distribution point of reach. Ones value to advertisers is directly proportional to ones affinities, reach, value propositions, connections and profile. In the Relationship Economy YOUR brand builds trusting and lasting relations.
YOUR brand creates commerce through sharing value and values. YOUR brand generates revenue and if one wants to advertisE on the back of YOUR brand, they will pay based on your metrics, your value, your reach and your richness. A new paradigm in advertising models and one which will require advertising executives to Rethink their entire approach to The Relationship Economy. The best thing for advertisers to do is get their brand associated with YOUR brand! Then and only then will marketers achieve success in reaching swarms!
What will YOUR brand attract in terms of advertisers? Time to start thinking.
What say you?
For more on the energing Relationship Economy visit www.relationship-economy.com
