Brand Syndicate - Filed under 'Social Marketing'

Social Always Gets The Best Of Marketers

No matter what you do, social always gets the best of you in the end.

I heard about Skittles integrating with Facebook and Flickr, which on its own, is an innovative way to differentate it's web presence from other candy manufacturers. And can we all be honest here? Consumer packaged goods web sites are generally pretty boring on their own. How much can you really say about a fruit flavored candy wrapped in a rainbow colored shell? And we all know that these websites were really never intended as part of the purchase decision?

Stepping away from the endless number of sticky games, contests and promotions, this approach takes what consumers expect to see when visiting a candy website and turns the experience upside down. The issue – along with any social marketing execution – is the ability to give up control of content and how it is used. This is a risk that needs to be considered, especially when the visitors may be children.

So when I confirmed my age (by the way, I'm not sure who the legal loophole genius was who invented this concept and does nothing to really protect minors – that's for another posting) and allowed my Facebook to "connect" with the Skittles site, the above image is what I saw first, featuring a wonderful post by "Loui". I am sure that Skittles did not dream that their fans would provide such passionate wall postings.

So how does "MF" end up as Skittle's featured "adjective" on its "website"? It's human nature. When rolling out any social marketing implementation, marketers must always carefully think through how content may be inserted, modified and displayed by visitors. Any opening that provides a visitor to contribute content, also provides the same opportunity for negative, or at least, inappropriate content.

In this new age of giving up control of our content, we must all be prepared. Whatever that means.

Filed under // Interactive Social Marketing

My So Called Social Network

Get Together!

Can we all agree that the buzz around Web 2.0 has reached the heights that the term “Information Superhighway” did back in 1996? Virtually every marketing and technology blog known has written about it and have beaten it into the ground. So why am I writing about it now? Laziness? Apathy?

The truth is, Web 2.0 and the range of supportive technologies, coding standards and widgets have finally allowed community site administrators as well as ALL of their users to interact at a much deeper level than has ever been available before. Hence my attention.

Whether it was dial-up bulletin boards of the 1980s or Internet access providers like Prodigy and AOL in the 1990s, people with common interests have always found a way to get together online. Today, community development tools such as Ning have empowered site administrators to quickly and efficiently build and manage community sites. From the user’s perspective, members can now share their perspective just as easily using Web 2.0 enhancements. The increased user — and very friendly functionality — is quickly becoming the norm of community sites.

Interaction within community sites has also moved to a much deeper level as the diversity of use increases. Take for instance the rise of Health 2.0, the related term of health care community sites that utilize Web 2.0 attributes to build greater interactivity for members. Health 2.0 buzz sites include ICYou.com (a new video player aspiring to become the “YouTube of Healthcare.”), PeerClip (a “social bookmarking tool” for physicians) and Imedix (peer illness interaction), just to name a few. In addition, web widget resources relating to specific use cases are being used by community users to greater build their personality or link to like minded individuals (see WidgetBox.)

Keeping the health perspective in mind, the improvement for community members to interact has driven the creation of a new level of social networking, or micro-communities. Until relatively recently, patients didn’t network. The fact is that “Health 2.0″ technology is now now enabling people with like backgrounds, causes or interests — even if they are a very small percentage of a larger-smaller group — to truly interact in a good way.

And that’s what the Internet is all about, isn’t it?

Filed under // Interactive Social Marketing

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Social Marketing

Social Always Gets The Best Of Marketers

My So Called Social Network