The traditional marketing fellas prognosticate that despite the surge of digital marketing, traditional marketing would not loose its sheen. Well, I have listened to some great discourses by leaders in this field who bet on digital marketing being the future of marketing. But the question is how successful would that be in India?
A country so vast, a country so diverse in every aspect - digital marketing becomes a challenge; for the simple reason - pushing vernacular related ads. With 22 languages in India, the question becomes which language to adopt. Not always population segmentation gives the right picture. Its a complex web of factors such as population, literacy, technology adoption capability, PC penetration rate, the cost of broadband in the state and many others. However, Social computing has become a mature channel in the west. The infrastructure and the fast technology adoption process of the masses helped in the spread of digital marketing. Forrester came out with its annual report on "Top Social Computing Predictions For 2010". It is a paid report, however, i have picked up some learnings from the blog of Brian Solis.
According to the report, the role of the new marketer will:
- Focus on outbound messaging in addition to consult with sales, customer service, and human resources on how the brand must be communicated in every consumer interaction, every tweet, and every touchpoint.
My view: Its easier said than done. We need to realize the enormous monitoring cost because managing impression in the vast world wide web is not a mean task. Would benefit outweigh the cost is the question we need to answer.
- Fashion programs that are seamless with the actual product and service experience beyond the imagination of creative messages.
My view: This is nothing new. The traditional marketeers used to do this long back.
- Respond to and be part of the ever-changing dialog with consumers, not plan bursts of communication on a yearlong calendar
My view: Very true. Question is "How to achieve this?" Responding meaningfully to the ever-changing dialog with consumers means vastly increasing the screening and monitoring cost. This is a typical chicken-egg problem. Without the other benefits would not follow.
- Look beyond the quantity of friends, page visits, eyeballs, readers, and viewers to measure changes in consumer attitude and intent
My view : I have always been a proponent of Semantic search and Netnography. These two growing stars of science/ethnographic studies understand the human sentiments behind the humongous data strewn around in the web. The biggest challenge of Social Media Marketing and Monetization of Social Networking would be to rightly gauge the feelings of the "conversation of the consumers" in the World Wide Web. So I do believe that we have to look beyond the simple numbers and concepts such as eyeballs, quantity of friends. Quality would surpass quantity in 2010.
- Listen to and engage customers one to one
- Build relationships and not campaigns
- Create experiences not impressions
My view: Theoretically easy to express, practically difficult to implement. We need to remember that in Social Media Marketing, execution is the key. Lofty ideas and vapid educational discourses hold no water if they are not executed properly. Isn't it an oxymoron
"Listen to and engage customers one to one" when we know there are millions of consumers online. My question is how can you possibly do that? Are we aware of the CAGR growth of online population of the world?
On Social Media ROI, Brian rightly said that "Measuring sentiment analysis, would-be referrals, and increases in share of voice are entry-level techniques that do not necessarily capture the potential of socialized media channels."
To end this please enjoy a good video on the topic - Has digital marketing usurped traditional marketing?
A country so vast, a country so diverse in every aspect - digital marketing becomes a challenge; for the simple reason - pushing vernacular related ads. With 22 languages in India, the question becomes which language to adopt. Not always population segmentation gives the right picture. Its a complex web of factors such as population, literacy, technology adoption capability, PC penetration rate, the cost of broadband in the state and many others. However, Social computing has become a mature channel in the west. The infrastructure and the fast technology adoption process of the masses helped in the spread of digital marketing. Forrester came out with its annual report on "Top Social Computing Predictions For 2010". It is a paid report, however, i have picked up some learnings from the blog of Brian Solis.
According to the report, the role of the new marketer will:
- Focus on outbound messaging in addition to consult with sales, customer service, and human resources on how the brand must be communicated in every consumer interaction, every tweet, and every touchpoint.
My view: Its easier said than done. We need to realize the enormous monitoring cost because managing impression in the vast world wide web is not a mean task. Would benefit outweigh the cost is the question we need to answer.
- Fashion programs that are seamless with the actual product and service experience beyond the imagination of creative messages.
My view: This is nothing new. The traditional marketeers used to do this long back.
- Respond to and be part of the ever-changing dialog with consumers, not plan bursts of communication on a yearlong calendar
My view: Very true. Question is "How to achieve this?" Responding meaningfully to the ever-changing dialog with consumers means vastly increasing the screening and monitoring cost. This is a typical chicken-egg problem. Without the other benefits would not follow.
- Look beyond the quantity of friends, page visits, eyeballs, readers, and viewers to measure changes in consumer attitude and intent
My view : I have always been a proponent of Semantic search and Netnography. These two growing stars of science/ethnographic studies understand the human sentiments behind the humongous data strewn around in the web. The biggest challenge of Social Media Marketing and Monetization of Social Networking would be to rightly gauge the feelings of the "conversation of the consumers" in the World Wide Web. So I do believe that we have to look beyond the simple numbers and concepts such as eyeballs, quantity of friends. Quality would surpass quantity in 2010.
- Listen to and engage customers one to one
- Build relationships and not campaigns
- Create experiences not impressions
My view: Theoretically easy to express, practically difficult to implement. We need to remember that in Social Media Marketing, execution is the key. Lofty ideas and vapid educational discourses hold no water if they are not executed properly. Isn't it an oxymoron
"Listen to and engage customers one to one" when we know there are millions of consumers online. My question is how can you possibly do that? Are we aware of the CAGR growth of online population of the world?
On Social Media ROI, Brian rightly said that "Measuring sentiment analysis, would-be referrals, and increases in share of voice are entry-level techniques that do not necessarily capture the potential of socialized media channels."
To end this please enjoy a good video on the topic - Has digital marketing usurped traditional marketing?
Sur - You have raised some very important concerns here. I don't think social computing is a fad, it's been around for too long! However, as you have correctly pointed out, the time has come for evangelists to buckle up and answer the questions you have raised + show some real ROI.
ReplyDeleteYes, now is the time to show some real ROI and go beyond unique visitors, page views and eyeballs. Could you point me to some credible resources on www which would give me some idea on ROI of Social media?
ReplyDelete