The Monetisation of Social Media: Digital's Holy Grail
Marketers have spent fortunes trying to target "the right demographics". But just when they were getting good at it, along comes social media.
One billion consumers regularly use social networks. Here, people happily give personal - even intimate - details about themselves. But in these democratised environments, people don't want to be overtly sold to. In fact, they're actively against it. Often adopting radically different personas simultaneously on different networks, users are also extremely difficult to pigeon-hole.
It's a beguiling challenge, then: how to tap into the commercial potential of such vast numbers of people expressing personal preferences, without them turning against you? Very few brands have worked it out and the majority of operators are yet to make their social networks pay (just ask the accountants at facebook).
But progress is being made and there are now examples of online brand building which are producing astonishing results over traditional advertising.
The world of sport is leading the way.
Sports fans form some of the most passionate groups of people and social media can easily re-create online what they do naturally offline - by providing a virtual gathering place that's open all day, every day.
Adidas has created an application for Chinese website Xiaonei.com's hugely popular game 'Basketball superstars', which already boasts 150,000 dedicated basketball fans. The game allows players to create their own virtual basketball team to play against other users. Adidas has added virtual branded gear including trainers and clothing to the game, which players can then purchase using virtual credits. The more Adidas equipment a team wears, the higher its stats go, in turn improving the team's chances of winning.
The vast majority of the highest ranking teams in the online game are now fully kitted out in Adidas wear. In the minds of players it creates an unconscious link between the brand and high performance, both within the game and in the real world.
But beyond this, embrace a community and they will often make quick, reliable and cost-effective product-testers. Critical considerations such as which colours or designs are likely to be a hit can be assessed with online fans in a much more collaborative way and at a fraction of the offline cost Win over this community and you'll recruit an impassioned army of well-connected brand ambassadors.
Eighteen months ago, major NFL American football team, the Indianapolis Colts, were one of the first sports brands to launch their own dedicated social network for fans (http://www.mycolts.net). Four weeks after the site's launch, it already had a loyal online audience in excess of 10,000. It has now become an ideal platform to sell merchandise, update fans on special events and most importantly to get instant and direct input from fans about the future of the franchise.
In fact, the opportunity to develop a direct relationship with an online community united by a common interest is open to all brands through the creation of a unique social network.
Some universal marketing principles apply -the space has to look good, the content needs to be compelling and refreshed regularly. When creating your own social network as opposed to joining others, the creative control over your site and the quality and uniqueness of content you can provide is a massive advantage. The site also needs to present a clear proposition or purpose that the audience can buy into. And online, expectations tend to be higher, so any brand entering this world needs to do so with complete conviction.
Yomego has been working with Irish telecoms provider, eircom. As sponsors of the Republic of Ireland national football team it was looking for a way to recruit, engage, empower and enlighten a digital community of fans. In its first few weeks of going live, soccerRepublic.ie had attracted over 100,000 unique visits. Thousands of fans now use the site as a knowledge source, sounding board, swap-shop and destination to get behind-the-scenes access to the players and backroom staff. eircom promises to shape the future of the site directly in tune with what the fans want.
But what does eircom get out of it commercially? In short, lots.
For a start, on a specially catered site of this type, display advertising can work much more successfully than has so far proved to be the case on generic social media networks. Provided the selected brands fit the site's overall editorial profile and the advertising is not over-intrusive, users will tolerate it much more than they would on the likes of Facebook or Myspace, where attempts to target advertising according to a user's profile have been viewed as in invasion of privacy.
Meanwhile, partnerships are proving to be a particularly productive way of raising brand awareness. The success or failure of these tailored sites hangs entirely on the added value of the content. y By adding real value to the community - via an offer, competition prize, game or other relevant and engaging feature -the community's enthusiasm for the site continues to be reinforced. Ultimately, this is what will keep them coming back..
Positive brand engagement, however, is the most obvious benefit - existing and potential customers are entering into meaningful dialogues and interactions in an environment built and facilitated by eircom. The value of such interaction for the brand and the reward for the consumer is practically beyond price.
Whilst no one has yet developed a definitive metric to quantify the benefits of this new model of social marketing, widespread brand advocacy is every marketer's dream and fan-based networks can deliver short term boosts and long-term sustainable sales growth.
Then there's one final factor - what would be the cost if you'd sat back and watched your nearest competitors get socially networked instead?
Joe Hughes,
Research & Insight Manager
