As a social media fan examples like this are so much fun to see, but imagine if you’d never ventured into Facebook or LinkedIn? How would you feel about seeing it creep in everywhere? Would you feel anxiety that you’re missing the boat or would you look at it as a fad that will soon die out?
I’ve long subscribed to a newsletter called the Pragmatic Marketing Update which focuses on information geared towards the technology product manager and marketer. Until recently I wouldn’t have considered the newsletter innovative in any way. It simply provided some good information that is relative to my career. Then, I saw this recently in the corner of the newsletter:
Obviously, this caught my eye. Pragmatic Marketing jumped into the realm of social media with a prominent LinkedIn and Facebook profile. I’d guess that most people that read this blog or other similar blogs are familiar with these social media sites and probably aren’t that surprised to see it. At last check, their Facebook site had close to 400 members. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like their using it for much more than allowing members to post job openings.
But, what about the Pragmatic Marketing subscriber that doesn’t engage in social media? What do they think of that? They’re seeing sites like these creep into their everyday life more and more.
A recent article on the MediaWeek website also highlighted a similar trend in their article Is Social Media Killing the Campaign Microsite? The article focused on the new method of companies not waiting for customers to come to their campaign landing page or microsite but rather jumping out and engaging the customers where they’re hanging out. From the article:
The growth of social media is causing marketers to realize they cannot expect consumers to always seek them out. Web widgets and video-sharing tools make it easy for any user to take content that formerly might have lived only on a brand site with them wherever they go. And social media sites help them share that content with friends.
Sprite Sips is an example of a Facebook campaign that is aimed at taking the Sprite marketing message to a popular social media site. It looks like the marketing campaign got off to a great start, but has since tailed off. Regardless, kudos to them for realizing that people probably weren’t going to seek out the Sprite website to see their latest campaign.
My belief is that social media campaigns such as the ones I’ve listed above are creeping further and further into people’s lives. I believe the more touchpoints people have with these types of marketing, the more likely they’ll be to jump in and figure out what this is all about.
The small business marketer should be looking at social media marketing tactics for 2008!
What are your thoughts? Do you think people not currently involved in social media will start to get into the action or will they think this is all one big fad?
Tags: Facebook, LinkedIn, MediaWeek, Pragmatic Marketing, social media, social media marketing, Sprite
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Just for clarification, the Pragmatic Marketing Facegroup site was actually created by one of our customers. We just provided a link so others can join in the peer-to-peer discussions. We do manage the Pragmatic Marketing Alumni LinkedIn group as we have to verify every member as having attended one of one of our seminars. It currently has about 2,000 members with a few hundred more added every month.
Very interesting. People will need to shift their thinking from e-mail or direct mail campaigns to this new kind. Lots of questions remain about privacy and potentially pissing off customers. But I like the idea of setting something up on a social site and letting your users find it, rather than just advertising to them there.
In the last week I have had two different clients bring up Facebook and other SM sites to reach “Gen Y” targets. One of them was a bank! That definitely shows me it’s penetration is deeper than we think.
Now it’s just learning how to finesse/capture it to get something out of it.
I hope that more people—marketers or not—start to pick up on the power of social media. Those that don’t get in on it are going to lose out.
Even if we’re all wrong, and it does turn out to be little more than a fad, it’s an incredibly lucrative fad, that providers are great way to engage your customers on a much more personal level.
Those who ignore social media do so at their own peril.
Erm, that should say “…provides a great way…”
@Graham - you’re obviously very tuned into social media if you’re monitoring your company being talked about on the web. That’s great to see! You guys do a great job with your seminars and magazine.
@Tim - I think the perfect scenario is to mix this new social media campaign with all other marketing activities including direct mail and email. But, you’re right, people will need to make a shift and accept the fact that it needs to be part of the mix.
@Aaron - that’s amazing. A bank? If you work on that project, it would be a great case study for your site. Capturing the return on that would be interesting.
@Adam - Yes, some will miss out on the early success of social media, but there will be plenty of opportunities down the road for everyone, I think.
Hi, this is my first time on this site, and I think that social media and networking is no longer a fad and I don’t think anyone can afford to give it a miss. It is now a very powerful market force and companies can ignore its potential at their own peril.
Living Rooms - Thanks for visiting the site!
Even though Social media is fairly new, I already feel as though the boat is leaving without me! I need to get a grasp of this and capitalize as best I can before it leaves the dock!
I think social media has gone mad.
Everyones going trying to me the next facebook/myspace and i think the market is already overcroweded. . . besides that, there boring !
this is a great article and i found it to be really interesting.
my deal is this… where do they all find the time? between the blogs and SEO and twitter and facebook… i don’t have time for a “real life”.
what is your suggestion for balance vs. being left behind?