The task of the marketer today is not to buy media for persuasion, but rather it’s to construct a platform of influence. But who will use this platform and how will they engage?
It’s a fact: younger people tend to use technology to fulfill social, entertainment and career objectives. This makes for countless entertainment portals, peer to peer systems and career social networking sites, all dedicated to filling those needs. Teens in particular spend more time online than adults do for many reasons. Perhaps the biggest one is that this is not a new tool of communication for them, it’s always been their way of life.
Some anecdotal research overheard from Guy Kawasaki on Marketing Voices, a podcast hosted by Jennifer Jones, is very revealing. Kawasaki asked a panel of five teenagers about their media consumption habits and learned: They don’t like direct advertising because they know they’re targeted for everything by everybody; They watch 1-2 hours of TV a week and that’s TiV’d; They rarely click on banner ads, as they’ve learned to tune them out; They tend to be more influenced by product placement than by an ad; They send 1400 text messages a month! (An interesting side note to consider: teens seek out trendy items to buy in printed materials like glossy teen magazines, but will then purchase these products online.)
According to a Q1 2005 study from Forrester (US data), 58% of 12-14 year olds own a mobile phone and surely that number is even higher today. To these kids, instant messaging, multiple email addresses and online social networking are just the norm and will remain so as they continue their education, raise families and pursue careers.
Social media to an aging population however, has different motivating factors. This group’s professional networking depends more on keen understanding and experience in traditional forms of communication than those found in social media. Furthermore, their need for technology is driven more by family and less by entertainment and career objectives. As the population of western nations age, this trend is expected to continue.
What do we learn from this?
If social media is in your marketing plan, consider your target audience. If your product targets youth, understand that you’re trying to reach an audience that’s almost unreachable by mass media.
1. Look for ways to enable your consumer to empower him/herself as a strategy to break through the clutter.
Diet Coke and Mentos
2. Look for ways to ride the coattails of social media celebrities, like Noah here. He took a photo of himself everyday for six years and stitched them together into a video on YouTube (over 4.2 million views)
Now it seems the “King” and many other celebrities have hitched their wagons to Noah’s star.
3. Or consider an old model on a new medium, like sponsored content on the amazingly successful podcast “Ask A Ninja“. According to an interview on AdAge’s podcast, these guys are getting $50 CPM for their average of 200000 U.S. downloads a week.
4. Enable the consumer to generate and share personalized communication that reflects their own lifestyles and engages them on their terms.
If you’re targeting the 35+ demographic, consider social media that will appeal to their hearts and social ideals.
Consider tools that help them to exchange ideas.
Consider IPTV networks that allow for more interactions with their families. I imagine a television network run by my brother, casting endless footage of my nephews growing up to exclusive subscribers like my parents and myself.
How about the power of the Flickr it’s many communities?
To illustrate this, I give you Flickr’s most common tags:
Wedding – 2,885,740 photos*
Party – 2,477,402 photos*
Family – 1,858,506 photos*
Friends – 1,664,847 photos*
(*at time of posting)
Enable communication rather than create it. That is the message.
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9 Responses to “Creating the Platform and Targeting the Audience for Social Media”
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January 22nd, 2007 at 12:44 am
Creating the Platform and Targeting the Audience for Social Media…
The task of the marketer today is not to buy media for persuasion, but rather it’s to construct a platform of influence. But who will use this platform and how will they engage? See some numbers and examples to help build your plan for social media….
January 22nd, 2007 at 12:55 am
Creating the Platform and Targeting the Audience for Social Media…
The task of the marketer today is not to buy media for persuasion, but rather it’s to build a platform of influence. But who will use this platform?…
January 22nd, 2007 at 3:13 pm
[...] Thinking about Social Media and the year ahead, RadicalTrust publishes the article Creating the Platform and Targeting the Audience for Social Media and opens with this paragraph: [...]
January 22nd, 2007 at 10:04 pm
[...] Update: Collin @ Radical Trust has a great post up about targeting your audience and integrating social media platforms – it helps to define the differences between enabling and creating the conversation. [photo credit: The Rappaz Horror Picture Show on Flickr] [...]
January 23rd, 2007 at 2:39 pm
[...] The use of such strategies within corporate podcasts, blogs and internet video campaigns is quickly becoming a new paradigm within itself. It will be interesting to see who ‘gets it’ and who doesn’t as more and more companies engage in these mediums for marketing, advertising, PR and customer engagement initiatives. You can read the original post here at Radical Trust. [...]
January 23rd, 2007 at 2:45 pm
Nice post – Thanks!
January 23rd, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Thanks Dan,
My pleasure.
cheers
collin
January 26th, 2007 at 5:39 pm
you are so right collin. and those who are embracing the idea of ENGAGING their audiences will see successes. Beck’s customizable album is a great example. I also read about a publishing company that is publishing books with blank covers so that the readers can design it themselves (of course, I can’t remember which publishing company..lol).
January 26th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
Hey ZedS
I think it was Joe Jaffe that was doing the blank book cover thing… Or was it Penguin Classics? Or Both!
I’ll check out the Beck album for sure. No surprise to me that he is on board with this thinking… Beck has always been ahead of the curve.
werd
collin