Marketing – Web 2.0 Style!

(hey all, y'know how I love to write right? (note to self: bad sentence that), well I wrote the article about Social networking below for a magazine and since its been published, thot I'd put it up on my own blog as well. Btw all you copy cats, you can filch my article but a citation would be appreciated

Marketing – Web 2.0 Style!
I’m not much of a cricket fan, but having an older brother made me pickup the nuances of the game, albeit quite involuntarily. I know that there is a ball called the “doosra” that is supposed to completely flummox the batsman. The efficacy of the “doosra”, my brother tells me, lies in its surprise element. Just when the batsman has figured out how to play the bowler, the latter throws in the “doosra” to confound the former. That’s exactly I suppose how marketers feel, our “doosra” being the internet ofcourse. Just when we have almost figured out Search engine marketing and optimization, the internet throws yet another curve ball called "Social Networking”.

Web 2.0
Web 2.0 is clearly the new buzz word these days with more than 500 million citations in google alone. Web 2.0, according to Wikipedia, refers to the next generation of internet applications that “facilitate sharing and collaboration between users”. The term “Web 2.0” came into being during the first O'Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004. If the first wave of the internet applications got users to seek content on the net, the second wave of internet applications not only lets users create content but also distribute and share it. Web 2.0 is all about using the internet as a platform to connect us and our online activities with the world at large. Technologies that fall under the Web 2.0 bracket include blogs, social networking sites such as Orkut, Facebook etc, Wikis and more.

Social Networking Sites (SNS)
Social Networking sites, till recently, were largely considered a teen fad – a place where idle teens hung out but when Newscorp bought Myspace for $580 million last year and when Facebook went from the being the 60th to the 7th most visited website in span of one year, the entire industry started taking notice.

Although Myspace and Facebook are largely popular in the United States, here in India, the Google promoted Orkut is the overwhelming favourite. India has the second highest number of Orkut users apart from Brazil, accounting for more than 8 million profiles. Infact Orkut is the 3rd most popular website in the country, behind Google and Yahoo according the website tracking portal, alexa.com and was even voted the “Youth Icon 2007” by MTV!

Most SNS work pretty much in the same manner. Users are required to sign-up using an email ID and password. Once they have registered, they proceed to fill out their “profile” that has information relating to age, gender, political views, relationship status and ofcourse the ubiquitous, “about me” field. Once the, “profile” has been created, users embark on building the “network” through search tools. Most SNS like Orkut, Myspace and Facebook allow users to post messages to friends through “scrapbooks”, blog, upload videos and photos, form communities and even send emails. Users spend an estimated 20 minutes per day on social networking sites.

With SNS drawing so much traffic its little wonder then that these days a new site is born practically every month. This has led to the creation of smaller more niche SNS like LinkedIn for professionals who want to network with other professionals in the same line of business or Shelfari for booklovers who want connect with other enthusiasts. Experts believe that the future of social networking lies in “custom built” social networks, with users creating their own social networks for their own circle of friends

Marketing Potential of SNS
Most SNS rake in advertising revenues through simple banner and text ads. Although, Orkut has recently pulled out text ads from the site (due internal considerations it seems), marketers as still excited by the prospects that SNS seem to offer

Targeting & Segmentation: As most SNS take in information on age, gender, location, ethnicity etc, while creating a profile, the ability to reach the right demographic is greatly enhanced. For example a B-school could easily advertise to 20+ age group category or a Japanese restaurant could advertise to people who prefer japanese cuisine in a particular city

Nurturing Early Adopter Communities: Most SNS encourage users to build & join communities based on their preferences and affiliations. Its, therefore, not surprising to find communities on products such as Toothpaste, chocolates etc. a community offers a plethora of opportunities to marketers. As a community is essentially comprised of loyalists and early adopters of a product, marketers can use a community to test new products and innovative ideas, get reviews and feedback, create a buzz, use the community to spread the message by word of mouth. Infact a peer recommendation is considered the most powerful and persuasive tool in leading to a purchase.

Widgets: A major inflexion point occurred in the social networking arena when, Mark Zukerberg, Facebook’s 23 yr old owner, announced this May that he was “opening” Facebook to third party developers. Anyone could now build “widgets” or web applications on Facebook and propagate it. This led to the development of all sorts of widgets including comparing and reviewing books, trivia quizzes on favourite TV shows or generating random quotes from a comic strip. The potential of widgets to attract traffic is so enormous that even Myspace and Orkut have both announced that they would be opening their sites to third party developers.

For a marketer this means that one could promote a product and create a “buzz” by creating a cool application, like a game and then have it spread by the network.

India and SNS
One of the best examples of Indian marketers warming up to the social networking phenomenon is HLL’s Sunsilk Gang of Girls Website. Since its launch in June 2006, the unique all girl community has over 600,000 members and over 36,000 “gangs”. Besides content that primarily relate to the brand like hair care and styling information, the portal has features such as blogs, Job Section, Book Bar, and a user generated video content section called GOG TV

The Gang of Girls portal has allowed the brand to propagate its message to the large user base more effectively than what a 30 second commercial could. It has created a space for loyal users to congregate where they can now give feedback, test and review new products, fill out survey sheets (a marketer’s dream!) and build even stronger associations with the brand. The brand in turn gets to learn the pulse of the market and get valuable information on what the next trend is going to be.

Another interesting aspect of the website is the tie-in with third party agents like Monster.com for the job section and oxford book store for the book bar section. Although these features add to the overall experience of the portal by making it more wholesome, it also means products not directly related to the brand get a weigh-in by the community.

MTV India’s relaunched website – mtvindia.com also incorporates a lot of SNS like features that finds favour with its target demographic – the college going youth. The MTV U section enables one to join ones college community and also interact with people from other colleges. Apart from the now usual features like blogs and message boards, there is also a section where products that appeal to the college crowd are promoted. Interestingly MTV India also has a link on the site to join its group on Facebook

Social networking features like blogs, communities, message boards are being increasingly adopted by marketers inorder to make their marketing campaigns more 360o. These features enable a marketer to truly engage and interact with the audience being marketed do

While the traffic that social networking sites attract is making marketers scramble to hit upon the right formula, the fundamental difference between search engine marketing and social networking must be understood. Search engine marketing works because people are essentially looking for things, in social networks people are essentially hanging out and not looking for anything specific. The advertising in such spaces needs to be subtle and should add to the experience of social networking. Anything that disrupts the experience is bound to be a big turnoff.

Another important aspect to keep in mind is that most of these sites have a youthful userbase that is prone to fads. The space needs to constantly to re-invent itself to have members coming back and not flock to the next site with cool features. This requires constant monitoring and large budgets. One must therefore decide what features one needs to implement to maximize the marketing effort