The widget is not a marketing or advertising strategy, at least not by itself. The discussion surrounding what marketing will become in the "post-advertising era" is reaching a fever pitch. While the death of the 30-second spot has been discussed, and much exaggerated, for some time, the difference this time is that people aren't just saying "there is a problem" -- people are actually proposing solutions. It's no longer a discussion as to the "need" to get involved in social networks, and other social media, but "how" marketers are going to get involved.
Just look at the past week or so...
Ted McConnell of Procter & Gamble is quoted as saying that social nets may never make the type of money they expect off of their inventory, because it might not be theirs to sell (to my mind, a commentary on the respect the entire industry needs to have for the individual).
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Then, in response, John Battelle posts a piece outlining how he believes marketing should/does work in social media with "It's Time to Put This Myth To Rest." Basically, Battelle says that if a brand can create an asset that adds value to a conversation in social media, the brand can reach people. I would go a step further and suggest that adding value to a person's social media experience is the new determination of a marketer's relevance. And as we all know, relevance is all that matters.
Then I read "Widgets Are Made for Marketing, So Why Aren't More Advertisers Using Them?" by Bob Garfield, which is the most comprehensive analysis of the current state of the social marketing eco-system I have seen. Garfield does an amazing job of outlining all of the opportunities and challenges widgets offer today's marketer to tap into social media.
All this has left me wanting to emphasize one point, hence the title of this post: The widget is not your strategy. Making the widget itself central to your strategy would be like saying that video is the center of your strategy, which begs the question; "Great, now what?" So we are going to make widgets; what widgets are we going to make? How are we going to distribute them? Why would people take them? Why would people share them? What do we hope to gain by getting people to use them? How are we going to measure success? These are the questions that will keep agencies gainfully employed for the decades to come -- at least, those that figure it out.
Garfield's article also points out that there are many different types of widget strategies. For example, there are widgets that are supposed to make your life better through personal utility, and then there are those meant to be shared with other people, creating a sort of social utility. And please, as I mentioned last week in "In A Social World, If It Doesn't Spread, It's Dead," don't treat people like they are stupid. If your brand is all over something, people will know that sharing it is doing you a favor, and it's fairly likely that if people really need/love the functionality you created, there is an unbranded version out there somewhere. So I repeat, please, do not think you are tricking people into sharing your brand. Instead, create a strategy based on why people would want to share your brand. There may be billions of social network page loads out there, but it is not in any way remnant inventory.
As a matter of fact, achieving the integration of your brand into a
conversation between two people in a relevant and meaningful way is the pinnacle of marketing. Treat it as such.
An innovative promotion goes a very long way! If companies and social media networks thought more about the user experience, they would create promotions that are far more engaging and effective.
About Joe's last point. If you are in fact integrating the brand into the conversation in a meaningful way then that is obviously a major win. But how much of the advertising in the social space is doing this? Even if done right, how many brands do users want to "integrate" with in an hour. Most of it is just seen as regular old ads regardless of the delivery method and by the very nature of the viewing pattern (aka billions of impressions) they are a 'dime a dozen' or remnant. Let's not romanticize it too much. When the other ads on the page are giving away iPods or smileys... you just might be remnant.
I have similar feelings - wrote about it here:
http://tinyurl.com/563tsw
Unless you are in the widget business - there can be no widget strategy.
TO'B
Much to agree with here, Joe. Widget campaigns do force advertisers to zone in on their overall objectives because they're just so darn malleable which speaks to your comparison of a widget to that of video - they're both über-versatile media, ultimately. Couple that with the widget's inherent viral potentiality and you get a very attractive ROI.
@Matt It's true, if you/your brand are just “there”, you are remnant. There is a lot going on in social. Widget distribution isn't enough. You need to be able to measure how impactful each impression is to know that you are not remnant. You also need to know the motivation behind why people brought you into their social media experience.
I promise it is not impossible. ?
Again I must be missing something huge here, but don't the terms of service of every major social networking site prohibit users from uploading or posting content that contains unauthorized advertising?
Is it going out on a limb to say that if the social network doesn't know who the advertiser is, what the ad looks like, what the ad may be delivering (Spyware download vector), what data the ad is collecting AND they aren't getting paid for it, then they aren't going to call it "authorized"!? How could such authorization even be given to end user?
IMHO basing a business strategy on assuming consumers will violate TOS and that social networking will continue to ignore the violation seems a little silly to me.
Well if the strategy that drives the development of the Widget is adding "value to a person's social media experience" then its relevant to most marketers, not only for promotions but as a stand alone offering. Check out VideoThang at videothang.com.