You may have heard the term Social Media thrown around a lot, usually in the context of Web 2.0 and other bits of jargon designed to make the novice feel like an outsider.

Yet social media is one of the newest platforms for online marketing and is fast defining the direction many successful businesses are moving.

Social media refers to the internet trend towards website interaction and online community building. Starting out merely as chat-rooms and bulletin boards, the marketing potential has exploded with the arrival of Facebook, MySpace, social bookmarking sites, modern blogging techniques and more.

Marketing companies are fast realizing that the future of advertising is going to be interactive. The beauty of online social media is that this interactivity is within reach of even the smallest online business.

Why Does Social Media Advertising Work?

The recent IBM Global Business Services Report displays the changes that are occurring to the ways in which people interact with advertising. With traditional advertising methods being treated more cynically, and with technology allowing more users to skip or ignore advertising (blocking of pop-ups, blocking images on page-loading, spam filters, time-shift television viewing, etc) the most effective advertising is becoming that which is generated or perpetuated by the user – true interactivity. This user-perpetuated marketing is what is known as ‘viral marketing’.

Viral marketing as a concept was coined in 1996 to describe the sort of advertising that naturally spreads itself through every day internet usage. The term was initially used to describe the effectiveness of Hotmail spreading their brand, by attaching their details in the footer of every email sent through their service.

Since then, viral marketing has exploded, with the development of sites such as YouTube and social networking sites providing further methods for users to spread messages they enjoy – even when these messages are part of a larger advertising campaign.

Many popular videos submitted to YouTube started life as television advertising, for example. There is now a push for television or video based advertising that attempts to capture a viewer’s interest enough so they will want to spread the clip further through email, video sharing sites or other methods.

This is the beauty of viral marketing – as these additional platforms display the advert to increasingly large audiences at no further cost to the advertiser.

The T-Shirt Revolution

Although viral marketing was identified in the nineties, is has been with us in a different form for a lot longer. When printed t-shirts exploded as a fashion accessory in the 1970’s, people willingly turned themselves into walking billboards, spreading brand messages in two ways; firstly, by providing additional visibility to the brand, and secondly, by forming an implicit endorsement of the product. If you wear a Coca-Cola t-shirt, you endorse the product independent of any marketing spin, providing a much stronger networking approach than previous advertising methods. By wearing a Coke t-shirt, you tell all your friends you are a Coke drinker and peer pressure has an incredible impact towards purchasing decisions.

Social media marketing works in just the same way. By encouraging users to identify themselves with particular brands, or even spruke for them on blogs and message boards, advertisers increase the spread of positive endorsements. Each user effectively forms first-hand recommendations to their networks.

Many larger brands have already identified the potential reach of social media marketing and the cost benefits involved. It is no surprise that Coca Cola was one of the first brands to open their own Facebook page, as well as build an island in Second Life and many other popular social media outlets.

How Does This Affect Me?

Online social media takes many forms, but the principle is always that the user has the ability to interact with the content, producing a sense of community by starting conversations. Blogging, social networking sites and bulletin boards are just some of the most popular forms of social media and are the most effective marketing platforms to take advantage of these new advertising trends.

As Facebook and MySpace look at further ways of monetising the incredible database of consumer information they have incidentally built up over the years, the tendency of their users to want to identify themselves with certain products - by linking to them from their pages, adding to their networks and including images – has led to a push to encourage more businesses to tap into this fresh marketing resource.

For example, using social media data, it is possible to target your advertising to very specific groups. Facebook advertising can make it very easy to target all left-wing, Sydney-based, female joggers with your new line of pink, environmentally-friendly running shoes. Although some may question the privacy issues of accessing this information, as the advertiser never receives this customer data, privacy is maintained and the user receives advertising more inline with their needs and interests.

Can Social Media Work For Me?

If you have a blog on your website, you are already using social media for marketing purposes. If not, consider adding a blog to attract regular qualified traffic or investigating blog advertising programs to get your message onto other related blogs. Blog advertising is becoming big business as blogs promote daily traffic, have high endorsement value and have strong viral potential themselves.

Other options are to create a MySpace or Facebook page. Once these pages are created, optimised and customised to your brand, you can invite users to join your network. Obviously this approach works better if your brand is attractive to the typical social network user; musicians, unique products and entertainment venues do very well at attracting a network very quickly.

There is no doubt that viral marketing and social media will only increase in their domination of modern advertising. The businesses that identify this potential and add social media strategies first will gain a significant advantage over their competition.

About the Author

Jonathan Crossfield is the Online Editor and Copywriter for Netregistry's Marketing Department and a regular contributor to Nett Magazine. If you would like Jonathan to write vibrant, fresh content for your website or marketing campaigns, enquire about Netregistry's Copywriting services.

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