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Internet Marketing 101 series: social media

November 20, 2009 [Part 3]
As computers became more affordable and access to the Internet became faster, people migrated toward Web sites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace because it afforded them a quick, simple way to stay in contact with their friends and family.  As a society, people trust information they receive from other like-minded people, and they started using these types of Web sites for information about products, companies, software, etc. If Aunt Mabel posted that she bought a couch from American Furniture and had a good experience, cousin Rachel may check that store first when she's looking for a new couch.  These types of Web sites are called social media for a reason:  They enable people to interact socially via their computers.  It's become as much of a national past time as eating pizzas while sitting on a La-z-Boy watching Sunday football.

As more and more people migrated to the Internet for their souce of information, magazines ads, newspapers, radio, and TV commercials began to lose their effectiveness.  Publishers like Hearst and Time started laying off people because companies weren't paying for ad pages anymore.  Why would they?  It would be like opening a store in an empty mall that was losing traffic to the new, bigger mall across town.  Companies started advertising where their target audiences were; and their target audiences were/are online.  Thus, companies also began creating Web sites in record numbers; believing that as long as they had a presence online, that was all they needed.  In the mid-to-late 1990s, that was true.  Today a lot more is required.

As more companies turned to some type of online presence, advertisers needed to find a way to capitalize on this trend.  Ad agencies created advertisements that popped up when someone clicked on a Web site, or placed banners within the content of a popular site, or came up with any number of ways to try to capture all those eyeballs that used to watch television or read newspapers.  People became annoyed at the popping, blicking ads, and soon search engines created ways for people to stop seeing them all together (called pop-up blockers).  This changed advertising because people were not only not captive anymore, they now specified how they wanted to be engaged.

Originally, the Internet was created as nothing more than a way for people in a workplace to interact with each other.  Programmers created forums to post comments about coding languages, new software, or to exchange ideas.  These avenues were called use groups, user groups or discussion forums and had rudimentary interfaces.  Programmers weren't concerned with pretty colors and graphics on a website, they were after function.  Entrepreneurs started paying attention to this phenomenon and noticed that programmers not only enjoyed communicating this way, they would have discussions at great length about many subjects. Software like Microsoft Outlook and Internet Explorer were developed to help those less technically savvy engage in conversations with other less technically savvy friends, and they in turn encouraged their friends and co-workers to obtain an email address and to "hop online", so they too could have instantenous conversations. It was so easy that this new medium was adopted 5 times faster than the television was. Having an email address became as much a staple in a company as having a business card.

People who didn't normally use the Internet during work hours, nor had an email address - known as slow adopters - created Hotmail accounts or Yahoo accounts and started emailing friends; sending and receiving pictures from their home computers.  Again, entrepreneurs paid attention and started building communities where these people could congregate and share tidbits of information about their lives.  Companies such as Flickr and YouTube were created to fulfill this need.  People didn't have to create email lists and figure out how to attach items via email anymore.  Today, over 200 million people (more like a billion depending on various research reports) have joined these social user groups to reconnect, share, and communicate with each other.  In essence, they started joining these Web sites to build groups, or online tribes, as another way to feel connected to others.

In marketing terms, these type of communities are called social networks and companies that use them to engage their customers are performing social media marketing. 

Posted by Suze Bragg on November 20, 2009 | Comments (0)