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You can't market on social networks. But you can market in
them.
(reader comments
at end of article)
The Pew Internet and American Life project says that 84% of
Americans online have contacted some type of online group or social
network. And there’s no denying that social networking is having a
tremendous impact on how we live.
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Would you put this control on your MySpace page? A lot of
people did, thanks to Toyota providing it (and a lot of other
content) free. |
MySpace now claims over 100 million accounts (though that number is
certainly inflated by inactive or invalid accounts). Kids under 25
don’t exchange e-mail addresses; they give each other their MySpace
pages.
There are thousands of other formal or informal social networks
online, some formed for that purpose, others accidentally becoming
networked because of others' enthusiasm for an idea, hobby, belief,
or product.
For marketers, social networking offers a tremendous opportunity,
and a unique challenge. If you’re a band, celebrity, or entertainer
and you don’t have a MySpace page, you’re asleep at the switch.
We’ve talked with a major national concert booking agency, and they have small armies of interns crawling through
band pages looking for new acts worthy of signing.
If you’re a company thinking that creating your own MySpace page
will expose your product to thousands, you might be right. Or you
might embarrass yourself.
MySpace, Facebook, and similar social networks aren’t really a new
idea. Geocities had a similar approach ten years ago, but
concentrated on location rather than individuals or interests.
Geocities encouraged users to create “cities” of interests, and at
one time boasted over 200,000 users. However, MySpace and others
have simplified the network so that it’s the individual that can
participate, and not rely on a group of like-minded people to get
things started. The person creates a page, then begins connecting
with people who have similar (though perhaps widely diverse)
interests and reasons for connecting. That’s part of the
adventure—seeing where the connections can take you.
Although research indicates that most young people (a large number of
social networkers) are using networks to talk primarily with people
they already know. Ninety-one percent of teens surveyed who use
social networks say they communicate most with people they see
frequently—or people whom they can’t see. They block their profiles
or they use false information to keep outsiders away (teenagers,
remember?). They’re smart and surprisingly careful.
But they’re not the only ones there. As the site has grown
exponentially, the demographics have gotten older. Users 35-54 now
account for about 40% of the user base—almost equal to those 25 and
younger.
So does this mean that a social network with a huge user base is a
prime target for marketing communications? It might, if you
understand that you must promote in the network, not on
it.
A couple of examples. Toyota has MySpace pages for each of its car
models. The Toyota Camry (the top selling car in the U.S.) has a
MySpace “friends” list of 189. Toyota’s Yaris has a friends list of
nearly 76,000. The difference? Toyota sponsored a video contest
for Yaris with a $5,000 first prize. People online could
participate and look at weekly winning entries. They could download
content for their own MySpace pages that might or might not have a
Yaris connection. They could talk back and forth about the car—or
anything else that came to mind.
The Yaris was part of the community, not an outsider trying to
intrude.
Many others have found this approach successful. The community is
about conversations (see our
Cluetrain: Eight
Years Down The Tracks article), and those who foster
conversations get interest. A small rollerskate company created
interest in itself simply by sponsoring a ticker of new articles on
extreme skating as they appeared online. As page traffic increased,
so did sales.
It’s
important to understand that social networks can be informal as
well. The strongest social network for adult women is pass-along
e-mail. Sure, lots can be cheesy or sentimental, but they get read.
Proctor & Gamble capitalized on this for its Tide Cold Water
detergent by creating a way for women to send friends free samples,
contribute to a charity that paid utility bills for the poor, and
learn how they could save money by washing only in cold water rather
than hot. P&G reported that as many as
one million
product samples were distributed solely through the online
networking effort.
The potential for social networking marketing is substantial, not
just because of the numbers of people who are networking but because
of their enthusiasm about spreading the word on things they believe
in or find entertaining. Media costs can be minimal to reach these
groups, but there are investments in other areas—content, time, and
involvement.
You can’t just visit the network to be successful. You have to be a
contributing part of it.
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Reader comments:
Strange, isn't it, the name "social network?" People mask
themselves in a cyber world (sometimes even fabricate their
identities) and transmit electronic words to anybody who cares to
read them on a screen. Sounds more like anti-social networking to
me.
--Knoxville, TN
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