Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day
I’ve just started reading a book entitled Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day by Dave Evans. And over the course of the next few weeks, as I finish a new chapter, I’m going to try to incorporate it into a blog post for discussion.
Chapter 1- The Backlash
Person-to-person connections have always been valued. In the first chapter of Evans’ book, he goes into detail about how social networks came about with the introduction of the Internet as well as the impact of advertising on consumers.
The Internet that many of us are familiar with today would probably not have come about if it wasn’t for the National Science Foundation (NSF) in conjunction with the National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET). According to Evans, it was the NSF who championed the cause of an “open” Internet- in other words a network that any entity (whether it be a person or business) could use for any purpose. However, problems would later arise.
Pushing Too Hard
To the average consumer, people who work in advertising and those who work in marketing are one in the same: sales people. Any time you turn on the television and try to watch your favorite show, unless you have a DVR or have otherwise pre-recorded the program, you’ll more than likely end up sitting through commercials that wind up being as long as the program! The challenge in advertising on television is to target a particular message to the viewer. However, the ability to succesfully do so is infinitely limited. Looking back, when television was fairly new, commercials made up less than ten minutes of each one hour show. However, today commercials have doubled- perhaps tripled that. Don’t believe me? Take a look at all of the hoopla that is involved with Super Bowl ads!
If you ask any relatively sane person what their opinion is on commercials, they’ll tell you how much they can’t stand them. After all, that’s why the DVR was invented, right? Well, in the same way that commercials were beginning to intrude on people’s ability to enjoy television programs, a similar thread was happening with the Internet. The arrival of spam brought about many issues. Here was this network in which people could communicate and exchange ideas freely, targeting specific people in their niche, and now their conversations were being interrupted by pop up messages while their email inboxes were filling up with emails from people they didn’t even know who were trying to sell them something. Keeping this in mind, Evan states:
In their purest form, all conversations are participative and engaged in by choice. This simple premise goes a long way in explaining why interruption and deception on the Social Web are so violently rejected.
All of the aforementioned items have played (and continue to play) a vital role in how social media is evolving. Consumers are in control of what content gets shared; not the advertisers and marketers. Need evidence? DVRs were introduced so that consumers could skip over the annoying advertisements that were disrupting their programs. And let’s not forget about telephone marketing. If you’ll recall, in 2003 the telemarketing industry felt the backlash of consumer control as the Do Not Call Implementation Act passed. In summation, Evans highlights several points related to this media backlash below:
According to Evans:
- The emerging role of the individual as a source of information which is then used to influence purchase decisions is increasing as the role of the marketer and traditional media programmer in establishing the primary advertising is lessening.
- The “backlash” developed when the practice of pushing ads to consumers moved to the digital platform, which consumers have control over.
- Trust is essential if you want to succeed as a marketer.
April 15 2009 12:01 am | Reviews (non-paid) and Social Media and Social Media News and Social Networking
Dave Evans on 16 Apr 2009 at 7:46 am #
I love this, and appreciate your interest in my book and in sharing it this way with others. Let me know how I can help you.
Dave
David on 16 Apr 2009 at 8:08 am #
Dave,
We appreciate you stopping by and leaving a comment. Thanks for a GREAT book.
David
Oops, Did I Mention That I Was a Marketer? | Create Business Growth on 17 Apr 2009 at 2:02 am #
[...] more people have now turned to a virtual market- more commonly known as the Internet. And as Dave Evans points out, consumers are the ones who are really in charge of how successful the marketplace is. [...]