Lessons in Social Advertising
Posted on May 29, 2008
Posted by Mike Berkley
What’s the hottest, hippest, sexiest thing in digital media right now?
LISA!
I had the very good fortune of experiencing LISA last night at a downtown hotel (no worries, my wife doesn’t read this blog).
LISA, while hot, hip, and sexy, is actually no danger to my marriage. LISA stands for “Lessons in Social Advertising“. It is a traveling panel / networking event hitting the major media markets over the next month: Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York. Last night it kicked off in Portland, OR, home to the organizers of the event, TAOW Productions, and of course, home to SplashCast.
The LISA events are the first forums totally dedicated to “social advertising”. It is essentially a panel discussion, with lots of free alcohol and twittering. I was a lucky panelist, sharing the stage with social media thought leaders John Furrier (former CEO of PodTech), Hashem Bajwa (Dir. Digital Planning for Goodby, Sliverstein), Dave Allen (Dir. Insights & Digital Media for Nemo Design), and Kent Lewis (President of Anvil Media). Furrier was live tweeting, while on the panel.
What was so great about this 90 minute panel discussion was that it was heated, bubbling with energy! Fists were flying. We didn’t all agree, and we let it be known. The audience interaction was awesome.
What I want to focus on right now is the very first question: what does social advertising actually mean? The usual set of buzz words were tossed about, like “authenticity, engagement, being-part-of-the-conversation, blah, blah, blah.” While all true, I don’t think that helps in people’s understanding.
Here’s the SplashCast definition of social advertising:
Social advertising is getting consumers to tell the brand story, on behalf of the brand.
Simple. Powerful.
It’s not new. It’s long existed in the off-line world, called “word of mouth”: friends talking to friends about products and brands they like / don’t like. Family and friend influence is the biggest factor in purchase decisions; lots of research has shown this. The problem is that in the off-line world, brands have almost no control over this process.
But in the digital world, brands can play a critical role in the process. Friend and family influence (ie, “social advertising”) can now be seeded, augmented, controlled, and most importantly, it can be tracked and measured.
Let’s look at each of those:
- Seeded. Using tools like SplashCast within social networks, brands can now launch embeddable applications that entertain (compelling content, games), provide utility (information, data), and stimulate communication between family and friends (chat, comments, video / photo submissions, message boards, wikis). People put these applications on their social network profile page or blog, and share them with their family and friends. Conversations start within the context of the brand. It begins to organically spread from one profile page to the next, always being exposed to a new set of friends. The brand being invited into and distributed within a consumer’s circle of influence. This is very different from conventional advertising, where the brand is being forced onto consumers.
- Augmented. To augment the organic distribution as discussed above, brands have the ability to accelerate the process. Using conventional media buying methods, they can juice up the distribution of their social applications by placing them in front of their target consumers. An interactive SplashCast channel, for example, can be distributed within Google AdSense, placed on millions of relevant web sites.
- Controlled. Brands have the ability to listen and moderate (if they choose) the conversations that take place and the content that is create within their social application. There is lots of strategy to discuss around this topic… I will leave that for another post.
- Tracked and Measured. A good social application will provide reports on how far the app has spread across the web, where it has spread, who’s viewing it, how engaged are those users, are users getting value out of it, what are they saying, and ultimately (if the application has a commerce component), are consumers making purchase decisions as a result of it.
This is what progressive brands are doing right now, and there are success stories. All of this is cutting-edge in terms of what the technology enables (enabling, seeding, augmenting, controlling, and tracking), but social advertising is not a new concept.
Back to LISA. I will be panelist at the LA, San Francisco, and New York LISA events. Check out the LISA web site for dates and locations: http://lisa08.com.
Comments
4 Responses to “Lessons in Social Advertising”
Leave a Reply
Subscribe
About
SplashCast is a leading provider of social marketing solutions that gives brands direct access to teens and young adults where they live: social networks.
Search
CEO Twitter Stream
Follow the CEO on Twitter
The panel discussion (Portland) was great. One thing you mentioned more than once, that still bears repeating, is: Content. Getting a traditional corporate Marketing Department to adjust to the concept of new media is the first half of the challenge, but the other half is getting them to commit to creating engaging content in much more rapid iterations than they are accustomed to. This may require hiring new or different resources.
Hey Heather — great that you made it last night.
Your point is spot on. Content is such a critical component to successful digital marketing (let alone social marketing). In order to be “invited in” by a consumer, the brand must offer something of value back to the consumer, and it’s normally in the form of content, typically information or entertainment.
Content is the currency used to acquire audience. Companies can print their own. Most don’t. Why do I, the CEO, make time in my very demanding schedule to blog?
“Content is the currency used to acquire audience. Companies can print their own. Most don’t. Why do I, the CEO, make time in my very demanding schedule to blog?”
That, Mike, is one of the best, most succinct sentences in support of blogging for business (I’m arguing that it’s the first viable step on the way to social media engagement) that I’ve ever seen.
I speak a lot on business blogging - mind if I use that quote in my presentations? (With proper attribution, of course!)
Janet — of course. Your comment / request is a case in point. You will now be marketing me (and indirectly SplashCast) through your presentations, because I took the time to say something interesting or helpful on our blog. And so the cycle continues….