November 29th, 2007
The other day, CNN Money’s Paul R. LaMonica posted an interview with Jim Nail of Cymfony, positing the inevitable bubble of social networks because marketers won’t be able to monetize them in the typical traditional way that advertisers expect.
His point is that there will be consolidation in the social network market, some will go under and VC money for social networks will dry up.
Well, sure, that is definitely inevitable.
Bad ideas will naturally die, but the whole idea behind social media means that marketers will just have to work that much harder to get the attention of consumers out there. Because really, it is all about attention, and wake up folks, people are not paying attention to your ads, except as entertainment — and even that has no correlation to brand loyalty.
The social graph is giving shape to narrower and narrower online communities. Its not a container for marketers to hawk their wares to people, and people stuck in the mindset of a traditional advertiser will continue to stumble in their forays into “social media marketing.”
The mass media approach is broken (and has been for a long time), and the continued fragmentation of media means that marketers and advertisers actually have an incredible opportunity to reach just those people online who might care or might be interested. Decentralization and fragmentation of media just means that targeting is more strategic and more measurable.
It’s time for marketers to realize that trying to maintain control, to a great degree, will only fall flat. That means sticking with the endless banner ad route will only accomplish so much, and pushing endless ads on MySpace and Facebook will just cause people to tune out — Do you pay attention to the Flyer ads on Facebook? I don’t. I join groups, answer questions, use and try out apps and generally participate in the areas that interest me.
The most successful social media campaigns are the ones that let users take over an idea and run with it. Companies that embrace the decentralization of media will see value from the social graph. Those that approach it like yesterday’s banner ad will continue to be stuck in the paradigm of mass media.
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