Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Social media as advertising replacement/supplement

The Center for Media Research has some interesting figures on ad spend on blogs, podcasts, and RSS. Audience fragmentation and demographic fervor are two big drivers for advertisers who are exploring these new areas.

What the research doesn’t address is how many companies are looking beyond the traditional ad placement model and at using social media as a way to reach key audiences without actually advertising. Providing valuable information and services to potential customers and existing customers can be much more effective than merely flashing an ad in front of their faces. (An exception to this, of course, is search engine marketing, where searchers are actively self-identifying themselves as looking for your products and services. The search engine results they receive constitute that valuable information.)

To that end, I see that British tabloid The Sun is now offering RSS feeds of their site content. Are you going to wait for even the white van man to turn into a subscription fiend - podcasts on his iPod, RSS feeds in his Bloglines account - before you start looking into these engaging forms of marketing? (Hint: Many of the white van men already are using social media.)