Innovative marketing strategies

Facebook, Google and Yahoo want to know as do all their advertisers.

Google dominated the web by facilitating searches based on words, phrases and the pages containing them. Links from one site to another along with the volume of traffic counted in determining the most relevant pages for a searched term thus creating a successful search engine valuing the interest in specific words as an advertiser media. But words alone and links to the pages they resided on are no longer the most prolific source of relevant referrals — instead, people sharing content with other people via social networks like Facebook and Twitter have become the new grail of relevance and bankable targeted messages.

Google is paying social network sites for access to their public updates, but it does not have access to the personal profiles or the intimate details that Facebook does of those engaged in the sharing.

Facebook is building a potentially more powerful search engine: One that delivers search based on relationships and interests to value relevance. With the innovation of the “Like” button, Facebook will know more about individual preferences than those that preceded them.

Competitively, Google may be in a position to “buy” a solution or give one away. In fact, Google confirms free turn-by-turn directions coming to iPhone.

Free turn-by-turn Google Maps Navigation has already threatened an entire industry of GPS navigation companies whose livelihood depends on selling paid versions of what the search giant is now giving away for free. Currently Google Maps Navigation is available for Android phones only, but Google said it will bring free navigation to the iPhone along with other platforms.

Real time and historic proximity data coupled with actual purchases is proving to be valuable media criterion for advertisers seeking direct retail purchase performance metrics. Traditional branding campaigns are aggressively transforming into a direct sales influence on the internet and mobile platforms.

Digital viral marketing is the uniquely organic process of a customer connecting to a potential customer linking their social networks to share their online discoveries and experiences. The promotional benefits of viral marketing are many fold: little or  no media cost, high velocity of correspondence, peer recommendations, multiple linking sources which raise search rankings, exponential awareness which draws the attention of the press accelerating “buzz” and increases the opportunity to convert larger numbers of potential customers to purchasers – ultimately building a brand franchise in real time.

The magnets for engaging site visitors are opportunities to participate in; surveys, questionnaires, entertainment and relevant interactive content with a reward for sharing information about your product thus making them brand ambassadors.
           
Unlike traditional brand marketing which typically can take years, the metrics for success are the dollars spent to engage and the conversion to sales measured in real time.

Traditional brands may be hesitant to accept this paradigm, but web analytics show us that consumer generated content posted to sites dominates the brand related content space over the content created by the marketers of brands themselves. In fact, “77% of YouTube Twitter and Facebook listings that appeared for brand searches were created by someone other than the marketer.”

Marketers have come to learn that consumer collaboration creates immersive, shareable experiences. Peer sharing is essential if a product is to connect virally with consumers. While the acceleration of content distribution can be exhilarating and a great savings over paid media, the quality and tone of the user messages may not always be positive to the brand.

In anticipation of potentially negative correspondence, it is critical for brand marketers to have a plan and the means to address the situation immediately. Correspond with the detractors, generate new content to engage users to provide positive testimonials, stimulate sharing, but do not ignore those little nagging voices as they can become screams.