Rise of Conversation With Premeditated Paid Media

The Rise of Social Conversation with Premeditated Paid Media

As published in this month’s Arab Ad Magazine.
Driven to discuss “The Evolution of Social Media & Advertising” at Social Media Week in Beirut held from September 19th till 23rd 2011, Mindshare was ‘involved’ in this enthusing theme and rolled out several key notes on how businesses are plunging into the ‘social media’ realm with no contemplation . I take you further on this by speculating how these businesses with overwhelming aptitudes & enthusiasm sometimes blindly drive their marketing solutions to ‘online’ platforms without prudently studying and assessing a realistic scenario of a ‘Paid Media’ consideration.

What once was indistinctly referred to as “word of mouth” is now a huge business. The web became fully social when it thrived across users’ command and the control of online content, threading interaction and vast collaborative efforts from users across the globe. We can no longer split social media from the web- both are interlinked to create what we now use, the social web- web 3.0.

Still however the old generation of marketers (do not get me wrong, age has nothing to do with it, it’s the methodology of assembling a 360 marketing mix & consumer decision making process with the same old tools) often overemphasize the ‘Consider’ and ‘Buy’ stages of the journey, allocating 70 to 90% of resources to building awareness through advertising and encouraging buying through promotions. With over 50% of the world’s population under 30-years-old and 96% of them joining a social network (Socialnomics) the new types of media have recreated this user journey stages from ‘Consider & Buy’ to ‘Evaluate” & ‘Advocate’.

Such marketing investments that help consumers navigate the basic ‘Consider’ process and spread word of mouth can be as important as building awareness and driving purchases through the ‘Evaluate’ process. It is also conducted that 78% of consumers believe in peer to per recommendation from social and virtual friends, whereas 14% trust advertisements (Socialnomics). This determines that the ‘Evaluate’ phase creates a leeway for conversations which would evolve and sustain within global ecosystems split into three dismissed taxonomies. The structure of these three environments fall under the umbrella of paid, owned and earned media:

-In-house platform(s): company website, corporate blog, and mobile applications.
-Dedicated Spaces: Facebook page, YouTube Channel.
-Third Party sites: Forums, blogs, and third-party Facebook pages.

TV advertising or content is not accessible. One cannot share a TV advert. This takes me to another point to the advertising and branding agencies: sharable branded implementations should be created inversely to ensure an entertaining ingredient if not also collaborative (such as co-creation lengthened as you continue reading) & user relevant. The consumers’ online journey would be ensuring a cycle whereby the users are driven to the content through paid media, or paid seeding. Then arriving to the brand stages (owned media), and left to formulate a buzz online about their experiences on social network, blogs and forums (earned).

Along those lines of expecting an unrealistic rise of “brand buzz” on social media networks, businesses hyped on jumping the digital wagon set off with a social media plan without a premeditated paid media strategy. Some agencies, even brand managers do so without understanding that you cannot draw eyeballs onto a stage if you do not go to the whereabouts of those diversified audiences & light up tailor made messages. Are you expecting thousands of people rushing into your theatre just because you are on stage? Same goes with businesses creating an inventive Facebook landing page expecting fans to swarm in. The likelihood of consumer fanning your brand, aspiring to visit your social profile or even like any of your content will NOT occur if you do not go to where the eyeballs of these users (shifted from consumers when dealt with online) already are- their field of intellectual joy, news resort, search behavior and tell them “Hey, I know what you’re looking for and I got it. Now let’s talk”

The point of understanding the ecosystem of digital channeling requires vivid mapping of consumers’ proliferating habits, trends and behavior amidst vast online platforms. This has just started taking place with local businesses, not to mention many aspiring regional companies. Businesses now understand that the key to recognizing how each dollar is spent on their ‘digital’ initiative is to align their expectations with a solid ‘paid media’ scheme.

However starting late this year we’ve had some renowned businesses come with some basic KPIs of vastly increasing relative brand awareness online by lucidly considering various portals and exponential social media ad placements as the way to do it. “Why online” we ask? And of course the expected response, they say: “We can measure it”. See, they got that part right. But they missed on the whole picture of proper evaluation under the aim of ‘using online media for brand successes’. The truth of the matter is that those same businesses had NO platforms or conversation playgrounds to begin with. So where does your paid media take you then? This is where our efforts at Mindshare of guiding client into content creation, creative channel building, and owned media – a set of digitally integrated channels and platforms development came into composition.

Who said you can’t have a little bit of both? Some businesses uphold their efforts in entering the digital realm by placing their social media handles on traditional media space (another form of paid media, but offline) expecting phenomenal results. When considering both new media and traditional media, slapping some social networking icons on your print publications or outdoor spaces does not take you far in terms of community generation. I am a big fan of co-creation, and there exists inclusive possibilities of online co-creation into offline content. Off-line channels are only influential in the ‘Consider’ phase. But when you invite people together delightfully asking them to be part of your next TVC, this gets them enthusiastically submitting their images, story videos and even testimonials to your ‘Owned channels’. Driving people from online to offline content is challenging. Get them the right toys, ways to do it, and a place to play while ensuring a rewarding experience and they will do it. This is when offline becomes a means for consumers to ‘Advocate’

So I ask my fellow advertising agencies, you now have a hilarious agency made, costly TVC, primed to be a viral video. You decide to stash it somewhere online (I’m guessing YouTube for now). You wait days, weeks & now a month. Looking at the report, your views are below average and the people who have made it to your video are not your mapped target (Insight page YouTube), what do you do? Or how would you do it differently? Given up already? Contact me at rasha.rteil@mindsharemena.com and we’ll get to a premeditated digital media solution.