Quick fact : in 1993 there were 50 sites (say what?!), in 1999, there were 17 million sites, in 2008 there were a whopping 25 billion sites, with about 4 million new websites a month. How scary is that? Opportunites are everywhere with marketing on the web….
A brand can come to life in the digital environment easily, when done right. Digital branding is brand engagement with a key focus on communication via the web.
The internet has not only changed the face of marketing, but also how we communicate. It’s cheaper, faster, quicker, more reliable and you can target the whole world. Because of this evolution, the consumer holds more power than ever. Consumers can be very selective about which brands they want to interact with, and word of mouth or word of thought has multiplied phenomenally because people like to express their opinions, and publish their ideas to differentiate theirselves, and are doing so easily online. It has become as quick as connecting with a mobile phone and sharing a thought. Boom! It’s out there floating online, waiting for someone to read it. With mediums such as blogs, micro blogs, forums, social networks, groups, bookmarking sites, photo sites, video sharing, wiki collaborations, virtual worlds and even more, everyone is talking about something in cyberspace.
What is great about this is that brands can see what is being thought or said about them. The conversations they normally wouldn’t hear, they can now read casually with the help of ‘buzz’ monitoring and sophisticated analytics tools. By becoming a digital detective and doing a little online research using the user generated content out there, it will help create a much more effective, more informed marketing strategy. The information will be factual because it will be based on what people are doing and saying.
Blogs are an important mainstream medium and absolutely anyone can have them, and they are free, on sites such as wordpress, blogger and typepad. They can be a key component in a PR strategy and almost always link to other websites, which helps a lot for seo (search engine optomization). Most blogs have an RSS feed which means the content is automatically delivered to the reader either by email or by their browser.
‘Social Media is word of mouth on steroids’ – Blake Deutsch
Social Media has changed the web completely.
What is a social network?
A social network is a community where people can create relationships.
Some benefits of Social Media :
- It’s affordable : Creating a presence in most cases is absolutely free, well, almost. It just takes a bit of time building up a decent online presence.
- It’s viral : Content on the internet is ‘copy and pasted’ and spoken about daily. This can be great for your brand, but be careful, it can bite back just as easily.
- It increases traffic to the website : Which in turn generates more leads and new business. Make sure your website is ready for it! Make sure that landing pages are optomized and you can give them what they want.
- It helps the brand connect with the audience : Because social media is so interactive and personal, the relationships you build will be stronger and outlast than any other type of media. Make sure to stick to the brand’s promises though.
Things to consider when marketing with social networks :
- Research and focus on the best fit for your brand and target market
- Decide how you will represent yourself, either by brand, company, staff, subject guru, etc
- Participate in communities in your niche, but do it to provide value, not just for marketing
- Use analytics to track success
- Be authentic and true to the brand
- Don’t spam
Some online resources we’d recommend, if you’re not already on them:
- Facebook/MySpace : 430 million people already belong to Facebook or MySpace.
- You Tube : best know for its weird and wonderful videos, many companies now you you tube to shoot what look like ‘made-at-home’ videos, but are carefully constructed and are actually – viral campaigns!
- Digg : has more users than all other social bookmarking sites combined.
- Reddit : a link submitting website, choose a category and share your news. If people like it, it will become more popular. 1.2 million unique visitors a month from the US
- Del.icio.us : this is the original bookmarking site, and also gets about 1.1 million unique visitors a month from the US
- StumbleUpon : submit your website and people with similar interests will ‘stumble’ onto your page and if they like it, more people with similar interests get it too. StumbleUpon has 4.5 million members
- Flickr : the ultimate photo sharing website. This is becoming increasingly popular with search engines as well
- Twitter : Twitter is the fastest growing online medium. This is a powerful force for spreading opinions. Tweet about what your brand has to say with short mini updates, which can include links and hashtags. If you’d like to follow us on Twitter, you can find us here : http://twitter.com/dropsofpixels
- LinkedIn : Over 30 million professionals are members of linked in with 1.2 million joining every month.
Case Study : Burger King
A fantastic example of viral marketing, was quite a while back, when burger king had an actor dress in a chicken costume (aka the subservient chicken) and recorded a number of moves. Then, via the website you could tell him what to do, for example, dance, jump, moondance etc.
The Subservient Chicken web site became an innovative phenomenon and set a new standard in the interactive category.
The web site remains active to date, and by January 2005 it had attracted 14 million unique visitors and generated almost 400 million hits worldwide, including one million within a day after its launch.
Where is it going to go from here? Can we even imagine?
