I am convinced that one of the reasons of increased investment in social media marketing in 2010 (beyond the "hype"), comes from the promise of "branding." Marketing budgets, eager to channels you can create a brand and make it available to consumers, facing the crisis of traditional media, and the inability of other online channels to generate impact and "share of heart ."
Year 1995. Online marketing begins with the corporate website and online media banners. Quickly, the obsession with measuring progress and click on ecommerce sites, leads to conversion. How do you convert the traffic sales? The ecommerce was the king of the bubble of 2000. Sales, not branding. The branding was still territory reserved for television, newspapers and magazines. ECommerce
switched to Search Engine Marketing with Google (prior to directories, type Yahoo). Text ads and "contextual" offered little branding and much direct return (traffic and sales).
I recently attended meetings with heads of marketing and even CEOs. While talking about online marketing and sales, his eyes spoke of brand. SEM did not say, or SEO. MARK said. He said "customer experience" and "customer relationship." His eyes look into the promise, the remote possibility that social media are vehicles for branding on the Internet (when it comes to corporate reputation, everything is distorted, so I talk about branding, not the reputation). We
counted in different forums, how the impact of graphic design and content, has been drastically reduced in the 2.0 environment. 2.0 In the digital identity, the weight is in the interaction with the community, in relationship with client. It is the conversation, the bidirectionality what makes the identity. = Brand identity. If seen well, but I do not care about people, I will remain a fool well dressed, and this is my brand identity.
On the other hand, the eternal debate between "branding or direct sale" makes us forget that both forms coexist. The brands are to remain trademarks. Corporate reputation, branding, brand, brand experience ... When we talk about ROI on social media and talk about sales or cost reduction, cost us about brand, being intangible. We forget that many marketing budgets aimed at branding, are suffering on the one hand, the economic crisis and budget cuts, and on the other hand, the loss of effectiveness resulting from the crisis of traditional media as we know them.
The promise of social media in 2010, has been the promise of branding. This should not make us forget that Social Media Marketing in 2011, it also requires direct business results. Than by asking.
Photo: mleak
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