Although most of what you’re about to read is not ground-breaking news, it is my intention to explain to many how Social Media impacts businesses and the internet economy.
Back in the late 90’s the internet as we knew it exploded! People of all ages, shapes and sizes flocked to it in hordes. The beginning of what was to become our gigantic fishbowl (for this analogy) was underway. As people continued to rely on the internet for what they wanted and needed, the fishbowl got bigger and bigger. Until early in the 21st century when the fishbowl got SO big that the fish (users) were struggling to find good food (content), no matter how hard the food manufacturers (businesses) tried to get it to them.
Enter Google! Although Google had been around for a couple of years it’s adoption by the masses (fish and food manufacturers) didn’t happen until they all begin to realize how badly they needed help. Google quickly became the ONLY way for the fish to find EDIBLE food. And for the most part the rest is history, Google is by far and away the largest provider of valuable content to internet users. They identified early on that some food manufacturers would be willing to pay to have their food served to the fish when they came looking, and in turn is now making billions; serving up grub! This is referred to as Search Engine Marketing (SEM). It is important to note that although Social Media offers new and improved ways to market to the fish there is still a need for SEM.
Let us now examine how social media changes this landscape once again.
Social Media represents two major shifts in our fishbowl; the personal identifiers placed on each individual fish (by the fish themselves) and the swimming in schools. This gives manufacturers a number of new assets to work with when it comes to the delivery of food. One of the biggest being that when a food manufacturer satisfies one fish the whole school will know about it! There is a catch here though (no pun intended), if you don’t have a social media strategy then the fish won’t hear about your food.
To finish let’s quickly compare what Social Media Marketing does differently then Search Engine Marketing (SEM or Google). Search Engine Marketing takes all the fish that are looking for food and gives them a number of manufacturer’s food. The challenge in this is that the fish don’t trust this to always be the best food. Enter Social Media! Who better to take buying advice from than those who swim in your school. Manufacturers can now use the personal identifiers (location, gender, age, education, workplace, relationship status, relationship goals, etc.) that fish are giving them through Social Media to hyper-target which food they drop in front of them!
So if you own a business you are a food manufacturer, plain and simple. You now need to identify the school of fish that is the most likely to eat your food and when and how to serve it to them! Enter 4CAST! That’s what we do, we teach you the best way to get your school of fish’s attention, how much food they are willing to eat and when they prefer to snack. We give you real world solutions to technology and we make it make sense!
Tags: social media, social media marketing, social media marketing lethbridge
Thanks for the explanation, good analogy. I’m pretty new to this stuff, but it sounds like social media marketing is kind of like word of mouth advertising.