People don’t love brand messages or advertising. But they love stories. Stories are memorable, interesting and inviting.
It’s better for brands to create a story and empower consumers to join that story. Make it bigger in an engaging and authentic way. This is the new way of advertising in new media landscape. Social space ensures the stories to get bigger through conversations.
In digital landscape, technology can also change the way we tell a story.
Social is not a platform, it is a feature! So is the social media..
A Brazilian NGO supporting environmental projects created project through their Snapchat account, namely Nature Snap Fact. The idea is very simple. In each 10 seconds a natural resource disappear in the world, so it does from Snapchat. Since each content disappear in Snapchat anyway, it seems a clever way for them to grab attention.
This is one of the main illusions of marketers and agency people. Most of us see social media as various internet platforms our brand can fit into. But actually it is not! In digital landscape, social should be the feature which transforms everything we do in digital to a two way dialogue. Be it a comment box in a website, or a digital campaign lead by user generated contents. Indepenedently from a certain platform, each & every digital initiative could have social features.
Big data is like teenage sex: everyone talks about it, nobody really knows how to do it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it…
Dan ArielyBoth brands and agencies used to run for a big idea. The agencies used to work to craft one big, TV centric, broadcast campaign. But this approach is over now.
Digital landscape also transformed the creative approach for crafting ideas. A core creative idea may come up with a lot of tactical ideas and executions which will provoke conversations among target audience. So, for agency people; creatives should not just focus to find a very “big idea”. Because in digital, creativity comes in many different forms. What brands need is to craft a lot of integrated tactical creative ideas & executions, originated from a single core creative idea, that can live in a number of channels.
There will always be “big ideas”, and we will be running to get them. But a big idea is most effective when the agency also crafts other extensions/interpretations of the idea in each different channels in an engaging way.
To me Instagram is one of the best communication platforms for brands. Some brands already recognized the huge potential of Instagram. We will definitely see more of Instagram initiatives in the upcoming days.
Why brands started to love it? To me, because it is a perfect environment for branded user generated content in a very cool way! In Instagram every ordinary moment can magically turn to piece of art :) Journeys, moments, foods, travels, experiences, selfies, fashion.. And people are more likely to share the visual expression of their lifes to their network. Instagram gives the oppurtunity to look/feel good and bringing them close to photography. And brands can not stay away from such strong instinct.
Here are some quick tips for brands from Instagram;
– Be true to your brand
– Share experiences
– Find beauty everywhere
– Inspire action
– Know your audience
See more Instagram tips & news for brands in their own blog for businesses:
http://instagram-business.tumblr.com/
Digital marketing projects require a “dynamic” production process. Which is totally different than any other advertising production process in marketing communications. Let me briefly explain.
For example a website is never done. You have to always track, analyze and optimize. Or a digital campaign production is never done when it is on air. You have to put a lot of energy behind a campaign even after it goes live. Analytics and sentiments lead us to change a flow, update a page, add&drop a function or respond instantly to a user feedback. Or think about social media; the content and conversation is always evolving according to the user generated contents and co-creations.
And yes you are right, it requires huge effort and collaboration :)
Recently we are witnessing a new marketing myth: Youngs are leaving Facebook. They find Facebook mass and moving towards to more nich communites like Snapchat, MessageMe, Pinterest, instant messasing tools, etc. Is this really the fact in Turkey?
There is a right insight here. Facebook has become a mass platform. Parents, relatives, neighbors, teachers.. Everybody is there! So young people find it very mainstream. Some of them search for other communities, alternatives which are soley among their peer group.
But! Although most of the youngs use other platforms and social media communities; Facebook is still the most powerful and active platform for young generation. Young people also needs a mainstream! And it is definitely Facebook. Look at the numbers. With over 31 million users in Turkey, Facebook is by far the most popular platform. 13-24 age group counts 47% of total Facebook users in Turkey. There is nearly 11 million Turkish 18-24 y.o. users in Facebook today.
Having a group of people who can complete digital projects isn’t the same as have an agency that thinks and works in a digitally-centric way. Having a digital “capability” is not the same as having a digital “competency”.
