Marketing is Ruining the Internet
No, I don’t believe that it is — this was the title of a Social Media Week event I attended last week in New York. Below I’ve compiled the three most interesting points I took away from the panel discussion:
1. Advertising, Privacy, and Disclosure
There’s no such thing as a free lunch. In exchange for using Facebook free of charge, you offer up your information to advertisers. In exchange for Gmail, you give Google your data. There’s a delicate balance between what’s considered a fair trade and what is not. To keep your media on the right side of that fence, keep these ideas in mind:
- Disclosure is critical — no stealth ads
- Make your hard sell in paid media, not in social/earned
- Make your ads as contextual and non-interruptive as possible
Remember: There’s always someplace else to go online. If advertising exceeds what users are willing to tolerate, they’re gone.
2. Have a Purpose
Marketers need to keep in mind, despite all the buzz around social, mobile, and the like, that their web presence needs to have a purpose. You need to provide value, or be entertaining. Entertaining is hard, but providing value is easy. Think about where you fit in that spectrum and stick to it.
3. Have Courage
With the rise of social media, consumer voices have been amplified. As a result, reactions to marketing campaigns — both good and bad — are much louder, and the prospect of a campaign blowing up in a bad way has the tendency to make marketers skittish about taking risks. However, an important role of marketing is to get people talking. You’re not going to appeal to everyone all the time — you’ve got to be willing to accept some backlash, and that can actually be a huge gift. Go out on a limb.
