Social Networking, Blogging and Business. They Really Do Go Together

Web 2.0 is the next generation of Internet based communities and will have a much larger affect on how businesses approach public relations, marketing and customer service than ever imagined in the beginning of e-commerce. Corporate America now has the opportunity to understand what their consumers are thinking and what they want right now. The businesses that are not aware of that and do not know how to properly utilize social networking will be left behind. Just having a slogan and jingle no longer are enough to keep a consumer’s interest. Some marketing firms and companies still believe that is all they need. In the same way Starbucks changed the coffee industry and left Folgers chasing from way behind, businesses that do not react to the new age of advertising will be left in the wake of companies that do. Anthony J. Cortese in his book, Provocateur states the importance of advertising and how it reflects on a community and society, “Advertising is one of the most powerful mechanisms through which members of a society assimilate their cultural heritage and cultural ideologies of domination.”(2)

To fully understand where Web 2.0 is taking communications for businesses especially in advertising it is necessary to revisit the old models of advertising. Throughout the history of the United States marketing has worked under the concept that, “The central idea of marketing is of a matching between a company’s capabilities and the wants of customers in order to achieve the objectives of both parties.” As quoted in Marketing Plans; How to Prepare Them, How to Use Them. William McDonald. (3). Going back to the United States Civil war, advertising made a surge with the increase in circulation of daily newspapers. In the forward section of the book, American Advertising, 1865-1900 by Leonard De Vries and Ilonka Van Amstel it is noted, “The
country’s population was ever hungry for war news, and this led to the birth of the Sunday editions of the daily newspapers.” The added circulation of these papers added to the frequency and size of ads from current advertisers and brought many more businesses into the marketing business.

Marketing and advertising for so long has had a push mentality as Matt Dickman, Vice President of Digital Marketing at Fleishman Hillard, put it in a recent interview, “in the past all marketing companies were about pushing messages… Today it is more important to reach the top ten influential people in a market than it is to get your message out to everyone in the market.” Businesses and marketing firms tried for years to get their message out to as many people and as often as they could in hopes that when it came time for the consumer to make a purchase, they would be reminded of the message. The term impression was used by marketing firms to illustrate how often their commercial, printed advertisement or billboard was viewed by the average consumer. They would do their best to target their message to actual consumers of the product they were pushing, but had no way of truly knowing if the person seeing the add was in the market for their product or service. An enormous amount of research and expense went in to choosing the right television programs and times, magazines, newspaper space, and billboard placement in hopes of reaching the right audience. The airways of television and radio became so overcrowded with advertising that the consumer and technology found ways to avoid exposure. It has recently been estimated by TV Guide Magazine that 50% of homes in America now watch digitally recorded television in order to avoid commercials. Satellite radio now carries endless streams of music and programming with little to no advertising on most stations and a large number of music listeners now listen to MP3 players with music downloaded from the internet where they are willing to pay from $0.50 to a$1.50 a song in order to avoid commercials. Advertising firms and marketing departments have been struggling to come up with ways to work around the work arounds of consumers. Some companies, especially those who could not financially afford to just put their message out on every medium with hopes of it being viewed by the right people turned to a new form of advertising by using what is called niche marketing. Companies would research into what types of social and political activities their die hard, loyal customers participated in and find ways to target their advertising within those areas.

One good example of this is how Subaru of America capitalized on something they discovered by accident. Subaru learned from an outside consumer group that Subaru customers were very active in the outdoor lifestyle. It is very common for Subaru owners to enjoy camping, bike riding, hiking, skiing, kayaking and canoeing. Subaru first started to build a presence in the magazines that outdoor enthusiast like to read. Subaru in turn started to join the same organizations that outdoor sportsman join. Then they started to host events and join their causes. Subaru has also entered into joint ventures with companies that sell other products for those activities like Dagger Kayaks and L.L. Bean. By doing this Subaru was able to aim their advertising dollars on the people that bought their products. This focused approach had a two fold benefit. Subaru was able to spend their advertising more economically and affectively, and the consumer felt part of a community with Subaru and other Subaru customers.