grat post, for a hosting company like us, social marketing is now a must have, thanks!!
Rebecca
· 6 months ago
I don't think that social media and 'corporate' websites are mutually exclusive - they work together really well! At my organization we use Twitter and Facebook to have a dialogue with our stakeholders, and part of that dialogue is pointing them to information that we post on our blog (http://www.giveadamn.ca) and our website (http://www.unitedwaytoronto.com).
There are plenty of good reasons to use both social media sites and corporate websites, and using them to support each other seems to be an effective strategy, in my opinion.
benin
· 6 months ago
I would tend to agree with Rebecca that one hand washes the other when it comes to social profiles and corporate sites. As the story suggests not everyone is on board yet-with social media. Plus, to further reinforce the statement that they are not mutually exclusive a growing trend that I have noticed is the happy medium that is the corporate site with social media elements.
Anita Hunt
· 6 months ago
Rather than making corporate websites irrelevant, I think of adding interactive marketing campaigns to platforms such as Facebook as supplementing an organisations digital presence.
Guest
· 6 months ago
As the dynamics of the Web 2.0 continue to evolve, we will see more and more consumers not only expecting, but demanding, to interact with companies and products. Adam, you're right~ corporate websites can sometimes be less than compelling... Perhaps a shift will come where corporate websites will become the forum for interaction rather than outside social networking sites. Just a thought... Sara @ iGoMogul
Adam Ostrow
· 6 months ago
Good point. I think Vitamin Water could've accomplished much of the same on their own website - using Facebook Connect - but the call to action would be a bit less clear, and they wouldn't have the ongoing dialogue they now will with fans of their Page.
Guest
· 6 months ago
That's absolutely correct, the interaction with this campaign is enormous. Though, do you see a shift at some point in the future where corporate websites will become arenas for that amount of dialog? Couldn't it only be beneficial if that interaction was done on the corporate website? For example, rather than fans dialoguing on Facebook and commenting on the Wall there, do you see a point where a corporate website will have fan profiles and a corporate Wall? If so, do you think that would be detrimental to the company's overall reach for exposure? It is interesting to see how social media forces the evolution of corporate behavior.
Sara
John Robinson
· 6 months ago
Sara, The only problem I see with the conversation shifting back to the corporate website is that I'm not as likely to consume that content if I have to take the extra step of visit their site.
I visit Facebook everyday so why not just provide me with company updates there? I'd be more likely to read a company update if it were integrated into my Facebook browsing rather than having to go visit a separate site. I like a lot of brands but I can't think of any one in particular where I would take time out of the day to go visit their specific community.
Maybe that's just me though? John @ Yourmagz
greasyguide
· 6 months ago
I agree...I can't name on one hand a corporate website that I find compelling enough for me to visit on a daily basis. And that type of behavior is just not happening in a large enough number for it to be effective. Starting a Facebook Public Profile cost basically nothing to get going and will hit your users right where they live.
With Facebook users spending billions of hours on the site until Facebook dies out or becomes uncool...you really have to be there. And in these times why spend the money on putting to many features into your corporate website. Keep it simple and TALK TO YOUR CONSUMERS and see what they really want and think.
swagv
· 6 months ago
An online media presence now is like drinking from a firehose. Consumers are inundated with requests to sign up for their newsletters, follow their Twitter feeds, become fans on Facebook or friends on MySpace, read their blogs and sign up for their RSS feeds.
It's actually become quite ridiculous and unsustainable. I expect a pretty significant house cleaning in the near future, as new sites will come up to replace today's Facebooks and Twitters and we'll have another army of redundant information feeds that businesses will want customers to follow.
Just given our own personal relationships in our lives, how many of us connect with friends in 12 different ways regularly? We can handle only two or three before it's overload.
swagv
· 6 months ago
An online media presence now is like drinking from a firehose. Consumers are inundated with requests to sign up for their newsletters, follow their Twitter feeds, become fans on Facebook or friends on MySpace, read their blogs and sign up for their RSS feeds.
It's actually become quite ridiculous and unsustainable. I expect a pretty significant house cleaning in the near future, as new sites will come up to replace today's Facebooks and Twitters and we'll have another army of redundant information feeds that businesses will want customers to follow.
Just given our own personal relationships in our lives, how many of us connect with friends in 12 different ways regularly? We can handle only two or three before it's overload.
Manuel
· 6 months ago
Disgusting. 2 million plastic bottles are discarted in America every 5 minutes. That is 8 football fields covered with them, every 5 minutes. Only 4% gets "recycled" (meaning put in a recycling bin.
Now, spreading these facts, that is social, because it benefits the society. Not a few corporate interests to the detriment of all.
-Manuel.
Aaron Ellsworth
· 6 months ago
I've been thinking about this issue for quite some time. Thanks for bringing it out in the open, Adam. As others have commented, I believe that that social media tools such as facebook or twitter act as great complementary resources to a company's website, not replacements. However, there may come a time when this may not be the case, but I doubt it as many of us like to go to the source of the product or service for our own investigation of the company. Regardless, businesses should revisit their long-term strategy as it relates to the recent/future changes with the social web. I would argue that creating the easiest way to interact with a company's brand should be at the core of a business' marketing strategy. Unless your brand's website is one of the top five listings every time a prospective customer or client searches basic terms such as best car, womens clothing, etc., your website really isn't getting in front of as many of the right people it should, translating into fewer sales or less impact to your bottom line. Utilizing the right social media tools will not only increase visibility via search rankings, but also help your brand understand how, where, and what to advertise to the right people. Yes, corporations need a solid website. However, without the right social media strategy and the right tools, many corporations websites' will be just that, websites - not the marketing tools for which they were intended. In today's world, one should not exist without the other. Good read, thanks!
okhosting
· 6 months ago
I believe both corporate website and a social marketing strategy are keys for succes
biscuiti
· 6 months ago
I agree with the POV that this particular campaign is a valuable supplement to the corporate site. As for this point - "when advertising on a site as mainstream as ESPN, the ads will be disregarded by those with no interest in social networking" - I wonder: would they? What about people who click over to facebook.com/vitaminwater out of curiosity and can see videos, photos and even wall comments without logging in? What about increased brand awareness for Vitamin Water to those who visit ESPN.com but don't bother to click over to Facebook?
Also out of curiosity, do you prefer that I comment here vs. on Facebook, Twitter or via a Tumblr post?
Adam Ostrow
· 6 months ago
you can certainly do plenty of stuff on the FB Page without logging in ... but, if the user doesn't become a "fan," it's not of much additional value beyond what you could get by launching your own content site for the campaign.
as for where you comment, I personally prefer you do it on Mashable and then syndicate your comment back to Twitter, but, that's why we added our "social media comments" feature, so we can track them all and leave it up to you :-)
biscuiti
· 6 months ago
Maybe not much additional value, but then again, maybe not a waste of marketing dollars. I think there's a good argument to be made that there are both active and passive benefits of such a campaign. (And I agree with you that the engagement that comes with the social networking element is indeed more valuable.)
Re: where to comment... touché, Mr. Ostrow. ;)
Naturalherbalz
· 6 months ago
That's right, social media marketing and social networking is all about bonding and relation of one to another. www.DuggMe.com
ArkSeraph
· 6 months ago
Adam back in April 2008 you posted http://mashable.com/2008/04/25/dotcom-bust/ entitled "Was Our Party the Height of Web 2.0 Irrational Exuberance? We wish." In that post you posit in a similar context nearly "Since Chi.mp is a sponsor, I won’t offer my personal opinion of the service (it’s still in private alpha anyhow) here, but even if it is “identity management platform #181,” what’s so wrong with that?"
You are clearly indicating that despite Chi.mp potentially being #181 there is plenty of room and opportunity for all in the Web 2.0 space to differentiate themselves and prosper. I agree totally. Still Mashable has participated in the whole Twitter vs. Facebook vs. Myspace vs. Google as though there can only be one. Twitter is no more than sms everywhere and on everything, Facebook is a stripped down aggregator geared towards connections with minimalist tendencies and Myspace is really a portal in the AOL, Yahoo sense with limited community features and a focus on music, movies, videos and a heap of self expression. They are all completely different services with often different audiences and none of them could touch Google, so why the ridiculous post and assertions. It looks like an utter lack of objectivity.
Those in Social Media have a responsibility to each other to be honest with each other about the market, its needs and what's being provided. Those of you who do the reporting need more than anything to be objective. You can't on one hand say when its a sponsor or friend there's plenty of room in the space and it doesn't matter if they are the 181st. Then later beat the drum that Myspace is irrelevant because Facebook which is entirely different and has a different focus, has more members and thus must be more relevant. Twitter honestly would have more members than anyone if you think about it, its not a portal and can't do any of the things that Facebook or Myspace do, because it is a Short Messaging Service, freed from the constraints of the cell while exemplifying the behavior of RSS. It does what none of the others do and so doesn't compete with them, while all the other services definitely can and do benefit from its use.
Instead of trumpeting the demise of Pownce, Jaiku and now Rejaw which were worlds better than Twiiter, the question should have been asked how is this service which lacks so many features getting so much positive press. Apple, Amazon and anyone that routinely study their client bases, will tell you, 'the less clicks the better'. How could Twitter for instance really be a sustainable model when it needs an army of other websites to provide functionality that for whatever reason it didn't when everyone else was? The most tiring aspect of Web 2.0 is the ridiculous number of signup processes you have to have to go through. If Apple built a Twitter competitor, do you think there would be all these other websites just to send a picture? They'd build the greatest service and then hobble it by trying to dictate what you could and could not say or send, but that's Apple. Groups, channels and chat would be done in a way that makes sense and wouldn't require a course in deciphering hash tags either.
A corporate website might have 4 or 6 post a year, only they were more pronouncements or proclamations often legal, cold and distant. Wordpress MU/BuddyPress, ExpressionEngine et al are about the incorporation of the best aspects of the static webpage with social media technologies. As the market matures, companies will find that Facebook best serves their customers who were already on Facebook. Yet as it limits their ability to implement their brands any way they see fit and they loose eyes because as many know, 'sign-up to see more' turns some people off, their web properties will be less custom, as in good luck with that Adobe, and instead use ExpressionEngine, WordPressMU and the like.
The beauty of Web 2.0 isn't about the actual technology or even today's giants in the space. Web 2.0 at its best is about getting your message to your audience in the manner best consumed and utilized by them. It allows developers and consultants to identify the tools that are needed for their projects vs. having to build them. Disqus, GetSatisfaction, Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Myspace and Google are distinct and necessary parts of communications strategies that when mixed and matched capably provide enhanced stickiness because they are now interactive. Corporations will adapt, but the idea of Pepsi just having a Facebook page only. No, corporate websites aren't going any where. As they pay less attention to the hype of sites like Mashable, Facebook and Twiter might fade into the background more. There just tools, Adam, not the destination.
darren brunton
· 6 months ago
its very rare i use it that app so don,t know wether to take it serious
David
· 6 months ago
I know if I build a group, or heck, even if I just rely on my basic profile page, Facebook won't offer me the ability to track who is looking at me. Think about it. Can you currently click to see who's been looking over your profile? No. Also, they also won't allow me to write custom web applications that channel my website visitors in ways that provide additional services or metrics. All these things will only ever come from owning my own domain.
This article is really more about the thinning of web content horizontally across open API services like Twitter, which is exactly how things should be evolving. However, it will always be important for the reasons I mention to host and manage one's own web space.
-D
Milena Regos
· 6 months ago
I found it interesting that when you search for vitamin water in Facebook you end up scrolling trhough 16 pages of various vitamin water groups but not the one described above. Maybe they needed to establish their social media corporate presence with this campaign?
Alex
· 6 months ago
I don't think SNs can replace companies's intranet, instead they can supplement it. Corporate networks function more than communicate. http://www.itcenter.vn/cm/twitter/133/
scott
· 6 months ago
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techsupport
· 6 months ago
I believe both corporate website and a social marketing strategy are keys for succes.
Sam Klingner
· 6 months ago
I think it's just another way of staying relevant - a new type of brand differentiation.
Having a dotcom used to be the way to differentiate, now having a twitter account or fb profile/group is.
The real question is what's next?
jenney
· 6 months ago
As the dynamics of the Web 2.0 continue to evolve, we will see more and more consumers not only expecting, but demanding, to interact with companies and products.check this site http://www.noagents24.com
Christian
· 6 months ago
It all depends on what you do as to how you handle this question. Would your bank only work on sn sites - NO. However, could someone like Universal Music (who have a terrible corporate site) make better use of social sites to save costs and be more relevant - YES.
jenney
· 6 months ago
I noticed that VW ran a commercial as well with their facebook.com/vw website on the bottom right of the commercial. isnt that great. well check this website out http://www.noagents24.com.
jenney
· 6 months ago
I noticed that VW ran a commercial as well with their facebook.com/vw website on the bottom right of the commercial. isnt that great. well check this website out http://www.noagents24.com.
SocialSweetSpot
· 6 months ago
In your article you mention that you have to be a member of Facebook to view a public profile, this isn't true! ANYONE can view a public profile... Just Sayin.
In fact, it’s safe to say there are only two kinds of advertisers in this day and age: those that are already involved with social media, and those that soon will be. Advertisers recognize that consumer attention has shifted to the social networks. Many advertisers have already put a toe in the social media water, and many more are testing to see what it’s like and how it works.
Advertisers “are discovering the power of social networks but in large part not using them well. In 2009, over 70 percent of Fortune 500 companies will attempt social marketing campaigns, and 50 percent of them will fail to achieve their goals.”
While social networking still accounts for only a small part of the total online spend, it’s already obvious that the social endorsements it provides are more powerful than plain impressions. But social media marketing is in many ways so unlike regular advertising that it’s almost the opposite: The more you tout your product or service, the worse the impression you tend to make. In social media, it’s common for less to be more.
That’s why advertisers in social media must find the “sweet spot” between being too self-effacing and too aggressive.
Adam Ostrow
· 6 months ago
that's not what I say ... I wrote "users will need to be members in order to fully participate in your Page." Yes, you can still view stuff, but if you want to vote in polls, become a fan, share w/ friends, etc. you need to be a logged in member.
Justin Thorp
· 6 months ago
It's all about having your users interact with you in the place that you're going to get the most long term benefit for it. By keeping it all within Facebook, users are the closest to where their friends are can more easily pass on whatever messaging or content that you want them to share with those that follow them.
Martin Kelley
· 6 months ago
Interesting. I made a similar argument a few weeks ago, "Will Facebook (All But) Replace Corporate Websites", though my focus was primarily nonprofits:
The downside is that some marketing dollars are clearly wasted – not everyone uses Facebook,
No, marketing dollars are not wasted....wasted would be a banner ad campaign or a billboard that hits a traditional demographic that has existed for the last 100 years instead of who will actually buy their product. The beauty of Social Media...all opt in. Aka: your biggest fans ARE your marketing department. -jen @jenharris09
Aaron Ellsworth
· 6 months ago
Good call, Jen. However, social media can be a waste if not properly implemented. The right people + the right social venue + the right message = results. If you miss parts of the equation, some marketing efforts can be wasted...even along the same lines as a banner ad. I completely agree with your thoughts as long as the company understands how to leverage social media and how their social strategy compliments their marketing strategy overall. Good insight though, thanks! -Aaron @aaronellsworth
alisa leonard-hansen
· 6 months ago
Adam, you're hitting on what some of us in the digital marketing space have been murmuring about for a while....I would agree with @Rebecca that they are not mutually exclusive, but digital marketing does need to rethink what a brand digital presence is. Its not necessarily a hub and spoke presence where there is a dot com at the center and ancillary presence (Facebook, Twitter) at the edge....rather, a brand's digital presence will increasingly look more like a peered network or ecosystem where nodes have more equally weighted purpose (i.e. the dot com not necessarily the epicenter).....it requires what could be termed a "network architecture" approach to developing a digital presence...
noteasilyfooled
· 6 months ago
This is total crap! You are drinking and drowning in the Kool Aid (with or w/o vitamins).
Cindy
· 6 months ago
This raises the question, why not work towards making your website compelling enough for people to want to come back for a visit? And incorporate email and social media campaigns to draw attention back to your website.
Mike Weiss
· 6 months ago
I have to respectfully disagree with the sentiments above and below. VitaminWater still has a website - it's http://www.glaceau.com/ and ultimately is leveraging Facebook's demographic to push their brand (among a specific demo), engage FB users, etc. Go where your audience or demographic that you're targeting is. How is this any different?
Marcie Casas
· 6 months ago
Yes! In part because numerous corporate websites languish for months - even years - with no informational updates even though personnel, roles, etc may have changed. In fact, I go one step further in arguing that sites like Twitter are the new customer service window for companies. I blogged about my view here: http://www.gdc-co.com/blog/?p=89
Brett Farmiloe
· 6 months ago
It's going to be crazy if Lebron and/or Kobe don't make the championship. Regardless, Vitamin Water got the bang for the buck.
As for the topic at hand, what do you think about having CEO's being the face of the company? For example, our CEO tweets under http://twitter.com/jobing. He was formerly tweeting under his full name. This could give people an additional reason to do business with a company...right?
@ireckon
· 6 months ago
For corporations with many products and services there is a need to aggregate the overall corporate information and interactive tools. Additionally with Social Media tools like Facebook not charging and controlling almost all of your content, placing your entire business in their hands would be dangerous.
You need a strategy and a plan not just this thing or that thing. Make everything work together and then you get success. Rarely is it only 1 thing or the other.
Yes, websites are still revelant. But corporate websites should integrate more social media functions to stay relevant: http://cli.gs/DhYjnW
Rena Khawly Stuart
· 6 months ago
On the one hand, we keep reading how content is so important because good use of content that ads value to people helps build engagement, trust, and loyalty. Now, we keep reading about how noone remembers corporate websites or sites in general. So, what is it? Scrap corporate websites/sites and use twitter and facebook? Similarly, there is this confusion it seems about whether sites should be branded or not if they are not the corporate websites. Don't brand the site, people say this brand can't be trusted; brand the site and people say enough with the selling. Do we really know what we want?
Andrew Smith
· 6 months ago
Why why why, do people over sell what social media can do and its importance? For me, you cannot remove your corproate website, lets not be silly. By all means, leverage social media and social media websites, you really should as the benefits are there to see. Social media is there to help and bring a new form of communication, not to replace other forms of interaction!
I just started a fanbook page for my business and it is amazing how these big companies are able to get such a large fan base. Good for them! You are a very detailed writer that offers a good read with useful information. Thanks.
Noah Robinson
· 6 months ago
Great post.
Vitaminwater probably saved a lot of money on building a website that no one would go back to. The incremental benefit of the newsfeed is very useful (at least for now).
But "number of fans" count is probably a misleading metric for evaluating a campaign.
Yes, vitaminwater will be able to communicate with those people again for some time but if they don't have anything useful to say it won't matter.
Also, once a few bad apple advertisers abuse the system users will simply learn to hide/ignore advertiser updates (if not opt-out of fandom).
HAROLD
· 6 months ago
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Honestly, you're irrelevant as a commentator to even suggest corporate websites are redundant. I think there's a colony in French Guyana for you Kool-Aid drinkers...
Rick Hardy
· 6 months ago
Adam, excellent analysis. From a different angle, I've been wondering the same thing (about college websites) and wrote about it on my blog at http://buildingmarketingstrategies.wordpress.co.... I think the foundational thoughts are the same: why people go to corporate websites and their frame of mind when they do vs. why they go to social media, and how that prepares them for the exposure to your product. Thanks for the post!
Brian
· 6 months ago
Can anyone tell me why corporate websites are so afraid of social interaction on their sites. Doesn't the benefit outweigh the risk as long as it's managed?
Laurie Dunlop
· 6 months ago
Adam, your post provioked a great discussion in our office. I turned team comments into a blog post rebuttal to the notion that social media will replace the corporate Web site. Thanks for spurring such a great conversation around our water cooler! Here is a link to my post, http://www.netstrategies.com/blog/uncategorized....
Laurie Dunlop
· 6 months ago
Adam, your post spurred a great conversation around our office water cooler. I turned some of those comments into a blog post as a rebuttal to the notion social media will replace the corporate Web site. You can visit our company site to read the post.
Richter10.2 Media
· 6 months ago
Social Media is taking over the world, websites are becoming obsolete
All Comments
There are plenty of good reasons to use both social media sites and corporate websites, and using them to support each other seems to be an effective strategy, in my opinion.
Sara @ iGoMogul
Sara
The only problem I see with the conversation shifting back to the corporate website is that I'm not as likely to consume that content if I have to take the extra step of visit their site.
I visit Facebook everyday so why not just provide me with company updates there? I'd be more likely to read a company update if it were integrated into my Facebook browsing rather than having to go visit a separate site. I like a lot of brands but I can't think of any one in particular where I would take time out of the day to go visit their specific community.
Maybe that's just me though?
John @ Yourmagz
With Facebook users spending billions of hours on the site until Facebook dies out or becomes uncool...you really have to be there. And in these times why spend the money on putting to many features into your corporate website. Keep it simple and TALK TO YOUR CONSUMERS and see what they really want and think.
It's actually become quite ridiculous and unsustainable. I expect a pretty significant house cleaning in the near future, as new sites will come up to replace today's Facebooks and Twitters and we'll have another army of redundant information feeds that businesses will want customers to follow.
Just given our own personal relationships in our lives, how many of us connect with friends in 12 different ways regularly? We can handle only two or three before it's overload.
It's actually become quite ridiculous and unsustainable. I expect a pretty significant house cleaning in the near future, as new sites will come up to replace today's Facebooks and Twitters and we'll have another army of redundant information feeds that businesses will want customers to follow.
Just given our own personal relationships in our lives, how many of us connect with friends in 12 different ways regularly? We can handle only two or three before it's overload.
Now, spreading these facts, that is social, because it benefits the society. Not a few corporate interests to the detriment of all.
-Manuel.
Also out of curiosity, do you prefer that I comment here vs. on Facebook, Twitter or via a Tumblr post?
as for where you comment, I personally prefer you do it on Mashable and then syndicate your comment back to Twitter, but, that's why we added our "social media comments" feature, so we can track them all and leave it up to you :-)
Re: where to comment... touché, Mr. Ostrow. ;)
You are clearly indicating that despite Chi.mp potentially being #181 there is plenty of room and opportunity for all in the Web 2.0 space to differentiate themselves and prosper. I agree totally. Still Mashable has participated in the whole Twitter vs. Facebook vs. Myspace vs. Google as though there can only be one. Twitter is no more than sms everywhere and on everything, Facebook is a stripped down aggregator geared towards connections with minimalist tendencies and Myspace is really a portal in the AOL, Yahoo sense with limited community features and a focus on music, movies, videos and a heap of self expression. They are all completely different services with often different audiences and none of them could touch Google, so why the ridiculous post and assertions. It looks like an utter lack of objectivity.
Those in Social Media have a responsibility to each other to be honest with each other about the market, its needs and what's being provided. Those of you who do the reporting need more than anything to be objective. You can't on one hand say when its a sponsor or friend there's plenty of room in the space and it doesn't matter if they are the 181st. Then later beat the drum that Myspace is irrelevant because Facebook which is entirely different and has a different focus, has more members and thus must be more relevant. Twitter honestly would have more members than anyone if you think about it, its not a portal and can't do any of the things that Facebook or Myspace do, because it is a Short Messaging Service, freed from the constraints of the cell while exemplifying the behavior of RSS. It does what none of the others do and so doesn't compete with them, while all the other services definitely can and do benefit from its use.
Instead of trumpeting the demise of Pownce, Jaiku and now Rejaw which were worlds better than Twiiter, the question should have been asked how is this service which lacks so many features getting so much positive press. Apple, Amazon and anyone that routinely study their client bases, will tell you, 'the less clicks the better'. How could Twitter for instance really be a sustainable model when it needs an army of other websites to provide functionality that for whatever reason it didn't when everyone else was? The most tiring aspect of Web 2.0 is the ridiculous number of signup processes you have to have to go through. If Apple built a Twitter competitor, do you think there would be all these other websites just to send a picture? They'd build the greatest service and then hobble it by trying to dictate what you could and could not say or send, but that's Apple. Groups, channels and chat would be done in a way that makes sense and wouldn't require a course in deciphering hash tags either.
A corporate website might have 4 or 6 post a year, only they were more pronouncements or proclamations often legal, cold and distant. Wordpress MU/BuddyPress, ExpressionEngine et al are about the incorporation of the best aspects of the static webpage with social media technologies. As the market matures, companies will find that Facebook best serves their customers who were already on Facebook. Yet as it limits their ability to implement their brands any way they see fit and they loose eyes because as many know, 'sign-up to see more' turns some people off, their web properties will be less custom, as in good luck with that Adobe, and instead use ExpressionEngine, WordPressMU and the like.
The beauty of Web 2.0 isn't about the actual technology or even today's giants in the space. Web 2.0 at its best is about getting your message to your audience in the manner best consumed and utilized by them. It allows developers and consultants to identify the tools that are needed for their projects vs. having to build them. Disqus, GetSatisfaction, Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Myspace and Google are distinct and necessary parts of communications strategies that when mixed and matched capably provide enhanced stickiness because they are now interactive. Corporations will adapt, but the idea of Pepsi just having a Facebook page only. No, corporate websites aren't going any where. As they pay less attention to the hype of sites like Mashable, Facebook and Twiter might fade into the background more. There just tools, Adam, not the destination.
This article is really more about the thinning of web content horizontally across open API services like Twitter, which is exactly how things should be evolving. However, it will always be important for the reasons I mention to host and manage one's own web space.
-D
Having a dotcom used to be the way to differentiate, now having a twitter account or fb profile/group is.
The real question is what's next?
In fact, it’s safe to say there are only two kinds of advertisers in this day and age: those that are already involved with social media, and those that soon will be. Advertisers recognize that consumer attention has shifted to the social networks. Many advertisers have already put a toe in the social media water, and many more are testing to see what it’s like and how it works.
Advertisers “are discovering the power of social networks but in large part not using them well. In 2009, over 70 percent of Fortune 500 companies will attempt social marketing campaigns, and 50 percent of them will fail to achieve their goals.”
While social networking still accounts for only a small part of the total online spend, it’s already obvious that the social endorsements it provides are more powerful than plain impressions. But social media marketing is in many ways so unlike regular advertising that it’s almost the opposite: The more you tout your product or service, the worse the impression you tend to make. In social media, it’s common for less to be more.
That’s why advertisers in social media must find the “sweet spot” between being too self-effacing and too aggressive.
http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2009/04/will-faceb...
No, marketing dollars are not wasted....wasted would be a banner ad campaign or a billboard that hits a traditional demographic that has existed for the last 100 years instead of who will actually buy their product.
The beauty of Social Media...all opt in. Aka: your biggest fans ARE your marketing department.
-jen
@jenharris09
-Aaron
@aaronellsworth
As for the topic at hand, what do you think about having CEO's being the face of the company? For example, our CEO tweets under http://twitter.com/jobing. He was formerly tweeting under his full name. This could give people an additional reason to do business with a company...right?
You need a strategy and a plan not just this thing or that thing. Make everything work together and then you get success. Rarely is it only 1 thing or the other.
lida diyet zayıflama r10seoogle
Funny enough, was blogging about this only today
http://andrewonedegree.wordpress.com/2009/05/27...
Vitaminwater probably saved a lot of money on building a website that no one would go back to. The incremental benefit of the newsfeed is very useful (at least for now).
But "number of fans" count is probably a misleading metric for evaluating a campaign.
Yes, vitaminwater will be able to communicate with those people again for some time but if they don't have anything useful to say it won't matter.
Also, once a few bad apple advertisers abuse the system users will simply learn to hide/ignore advertiser updates (if not opt-out of fandom).
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