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When Planning Your Online Marketing Strategy, Don’t Be Anti-Social
October 25, 2007

By now, most people have heard of social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook—even if only in alarmist CNN reports about sexual predators. However, social networking sites are quickly turning into the hottest niches in the expanding world of online marketing. And, depending on the people your company targets, may be an overlooked opportunity.

As an example, eMarketer reports about a comScore study that found that:

More than 95% of heavy social networkers visited retail sites in August 2007, compared with 80% of the total US Internet audience. Heavy social networkers were defined as the top 20% of visitors based on time spent on a social networking site.

While these are bullish figures, eMarketer analysts and consultants advise caution, pointing to data obtained elsewhere that show that only 1% of U.S. Internet users said they checked social networks as part of their clothing-buying decision. In other words, people buy clothes (which is the consumer item these studies focused on) based on seeing what others in their peer group are wearing—but this peer group doesn’t extend to social networks. However, there is a compelling reason for this: it’s harder to see what people are wearing online (if anything...). We suspect that apparel is a bad example, and that if the study were extended to other consumer items like music, movies, electrnics the numbers would be a lot higher.

Which is not to say that we are in love with social networking sites. For those of us on the far side of 30 years old, a “social networking site” is a cocktail party or one’s local pub at happy hour. But for younger people, such sites play an increasingly important role in their social lives. And while social networking may seem like a “kid thing,” the fact is that these “kids” are bringing their social networking predilections into adulthood. Information Week magazine reports, in their October 15 issue, that companies are starting to turn to social networking sites for recruitment; Ernst and Young, for example, has a Facebook page aimed at prospective employees. Some are even using these sites as platforms for marketing communications; IBM and Sun have launched new products in the Second Life virtual community, and fast food restaurants have MySpace pages for their characters (such as Burger King’s King).

An interesting finding, via Nielsen/Net Ratings, was that very heavy users favor multiple social networking sites. As MediaWeek reported:

U.S. Web users aged 12-17 who regularly visit both MySpace and Facebook spend more time on these sites than users who visit just one site or the other. In August, those dual Facebook/MySpace users spent 26 percent more time on Facebook – or 93 minutes per month - than did the average Facebook-only users, who averaged just 74 minutes.

And similarly, those nondiscriminate social networkers spent 20 percent more time on MySpace – or a whopping 398 minutes - than the site’s exclusive users, who averaged 331 minutes.

Still, rank and file marketers and advertisers have yet to tap into social networks. The Industry Measure’s own research (Design & Production #23, Summer 2007) has found that only 5% of ad agencies find social networking sites to represent a sales or business opportunity.

But should it? Here are some tips to keep in mind when thinking about social networking:

• Most importantly, decide if it’s right for your business. There is nothing wrong with admitting that “it’s just not relevant to us”—just so long as you have given it careful, reasoned consideration.
• As with most online communities, try to avoid the patina of “advertising and marketing” and seek to engage users beyond simply “pitching something” to them.
• While the future viability of social networks is hardly assured (today’s fad is tomorrow’s cultural footnote), for the time being, it’s where the kids and young adults are, and they often need to be meet on their own turf.
• This may seem obvious, but we’d be remiss if we ignored it: visit MySpace and Facebook and see how users network on those sites, and how other marketers and advertisers are availing themselves of them.

Marketing via social networking may seem an alien concept to many “old timers” (here defined as anyone over the age of 30, present company included), but, as they say, “when in Rome...”. Or, as Willie Sutton is purported to have said when he was asked why he robbed banks: “That’s where the money is.”

Posted by Richard Romano on October 25, 2007 | Comments (1)