Social media now an important component of media plans
05 October, 2009
Vijay Iyer, Head – Sales Strategy, Komli MediaVijay Iyer, Head – Sales Strategy, Komli Media
The capability of a media vehicle to deliver value to an advertiser cannot be determined solely by its absolute reach of the advertiser’s target audience. The real value lies in the propensity of the intended user segment within the vehicle to consume, retain and respond to brand communication. The next billions in online will be fuelled by a media space which is able to create and retain audiences with equal mind space for content and media consumption.
Let’s take the case of the oldest example here: Google’s sponsored search where the advertiser’s communication is a seamless extension of the content itself. Sponsored search and search results look alike making the user equally involved with both before he makes his choice. Combine the simplicity of sponsored search with the stickiness of social media and voila! You have Facebook advertising.
It is a common assumption that a user’s purchase preferences and content consumption are correlated. But let’s consider a diaper ad on a finance portal. It doesn’t sound quite right, does it? That’s because you expect to advertise for exotic holidays, business phones and software solutions to a ‘finance audience’. The publisher’s inability to create subsets by user interest within a given property restricts the relevance of content association to the property as a whole. Since the portal cannot isolate moms and dads with kids at home from users on their finance property, it doesn’t seem like a good idea to advertise for diapers on it.
On the other hand, Facebook’s users represent an unprecedented convergence of user interests, making each user relevant to diverse advertisers. Facebook reaches 300 million people worldwide and its monetization capability comes not just from the increasingly loyal and frequent audience visits every day, but also the fact that there is no one defined area of interest for this group of social networkers. People connect to Facebook and stay on it for no defined intent and there lies its billion dollar strength.
Ironically, this potential billion dollar strength comes from the very aspect Facebook is being questioned for -- “millions of users with a loose common interest”. For advertisers, Facebook offers an opportunity to not just reach the guy who wants to buy diapers, but also be able to reach him when he is not really focused on one thing alone. This is a critical differentiator from conventional online reach.
Visualize how it would be to discuss retirement solutions with the CEO of a large firm sitting in his office. Now, if the same discussion happened in as informal a setting as a baseball game, wouldn’t it probably work better for the guy selling? Chris Gardner in ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’ found his audience in one such baseball game. We all know what happened next.
Facebook is the baseball game 300 million people worldwide are logging on to, and every brand out there has the opportunity to be Chris Gardner in the box. According to ViziSense, almost 8 million users from India are on Facebook and the numbers are increasing rapidly month on month. Facebook is emerging as the new home page to the world and this trend is no different in India.
At Komli, an interesting observation we are beginning to see is that media plans that have traditionally had only search and display budgets, now have search, display and social media budgets. Facebook has emerged as either the biggest or the only component of the social media budget and is quite often seen as an independent component of media plans.
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One can’t keep on doing the same stuff over and over again across all kinds of brands. Every brand has a unique feature and this needs to be attributed through innovative marketing initiatives. Unless the people working in this medium can innovate, spends will not grow on internet. "
social networking has become a marketing tactic. everyone use it as a advertiser..
The next billions in online will be fuelled by a media space which is able to create and retain audiences with equal mind space for content and media consumption.
This is a critical differentiator from conventional online reach.
Combine the simplicity of sponsored search with the stickiness of social media and voila! You have Facebook advertising.
Facebook and the numbers are increasing rapidly month on month.
you will notice that there will be growing semblance between Traditional plans and Online plans in Media and the online audience entirely will be classified in genres of social(s).
Well absolutely true!Social media allows us to discover, connect, and engage with new people of interest. While most people are open to new connections and receiving messages from people they don’t know, there is a fine line between reaching out and “spamming.” The challenge is to make a connection clearly and effectively without wasting people’s time.Many of us are on both sides of this relationship-sometimes making the connection, sometimes receiving the invitation.To help navigate these waters a little better, I’ve outlined seven key lessons for improving your social networking skills.
We are a start up Digital Creative Agency. Of late we have been creating Facebook only campaigns for brands like Fastrack, Durex and Arrow Woman. Clients and media agencies are focusing on Facebook because they have realised the potential of the platform. This is aptly covered in the article and others have added to it with their comments.
Our learnings suggest that there are unsurmountable benefits of making Facebook connections. The most important ones being:
1. Consumer feedback on the product/service being marketed.
2. Seeding viral content.
3. Prolonged brand engagement via applications.
Still the ROIs, quality content, strategy and dedication are the pillars of a successful Facebook presence.
Thanks for the post Vijay.
It will be important to see that media plans taking a quantum leap on the overall pie. Social Media is a subset( although important). Trends will finally merge into genres like Entertainment/Sports/Finance in line with traditional media( print or tv or radio.)
'Equal mind space for content and media consumption'..thats the key here Vijay!
If you notice most leading media brands have always propagated that and the social structure in markets like India and China make a media plan far more complex.
As markets like India and China evolve into more homogenity across the social strata, you will notice that there will be growing semblance between Traditional plans and Online plans in Media and the online audience entirely will be classified in genres of social(s).
I agree with Vijay on the fact that FB has a very conducive environment for brand advertisers. FB is 'an unbeatable mood maker' of sorts and provides a great environment for brands to serve banners and be noticed. However, I would like to add here that, the money to be made by social media sites like FB is not really from brand advertisers but from micro payments mechanisms from its 300 million user base. The whole 'Freemium' model is where FB can and will make a killing!
Hi Vijay,
In this era of web marketing, social media is the need of the hour today. One cant ignore the social media platform for their business.
sometimes it feels like everyone is blindly following the trend without understand the basic nuances
Companies are in a mad rush to enter the social networking space with 'tweets', 'widgets', 'apps' and 'fan pages'. However, social networking is not a marketing tactic; nor is it a surrogate for the brand'...s social experience. ...
@ better marketer: stop thinking clicks, starting thinking context, reach & engagement :)
One can’t define the strength of social media by reaching out to 2000 people and garner 67 clicks. I would love to rewrite the header as "Social media now an interesting component in building Digital brands”. But that’s much beyond trying social media and ugc as an advertising platform, one need to invest extensively in creating quality, interesting and sustainable digital brand propositions like the Starbucks http://mystarbucksidea.force.com/ideaHome resulted in making the brand most seen indulged and ranked even above the iconic Coke in digital space.
Until then marketers in India should continue to invest in Social media optimizers and ensure your brand health is well taken care and tracked in the digital space. For the time being the media planners will continue indulging making plans riding on the Google and Y! for at least a few more years for wider reach , impact and convertions.
Can't agree with you more on "The real value lies in the propensity of the intended user segment within the vehicle to consume, retain and respond to brand communication" .I have been experiementing with Facebook Ads for few of our products. CPM rate on Face Book - 1.25 INR CPM Rate of a major Indian Site - 100 INR Clicks from Facebook - 3.5X, Clicks from a major Indian Site - X.
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