By Sharon Hill
The definition of MARKETING
According to Wikipedia:
Marketing is a “social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and values with others.”
Interesting that the word social is already included in the definition.
According to BusinessDictionary.com:
As a philosophy, it is based on thinking about the business in terms of customer needs and their satisfaction.
The definition of MEDIA
According to Wikipedia:
In communication, media are the storage and transmission channels or tools used to store and deliver information or data.
According to BusinessDictionary.com:
Communication channels through which news, entertainment, education, data, or promotional messages are disseminated.
Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, LinkedIn and the like, are media. They are the communication device and they are getting all the attention.
Anytime there is a new communication device there are differing opinions about the value of the device. Radio scoffed at the new fangled invention called television. Television ignored cable and stated emphatically that the big 4 (ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC) would continue to reign the day. Even the United States Postal Service could not envision people paying their bills online instead of mailing them.
Traditional advertising agencies did not embrace online advertising which created firms specializing in online advertising. I know of what I speak because the founders of Social Media Dynamics were one of those such firms. We had to learn a different mindset. Cost Per Thousand (CPM) and Cost Per Point (CPP) which is used to measure traditional (i.e. mass) audiences did not apply to the much smaller internet world. The good news was that real tracking of results was available.
Most advertisers do not increase their budget when a new media opportunity becomes available. At first, a small percentage of the ad budget is used to test this new medium. Some advertisers are early adopters. Some are wait and see. The dollars are small for agencies and therefore their commissions even smaller.
Now back to Social M – edia or arketing
There are no commissions as the social networking sites are free or mostly free. Social media agencies have sprung up all over and are charging in new and different ways – not based on advertising expenditures.
Here is a radical thought: Social networking is more akin to entertainment, conferences, travel and business meetings than it is advertising. If we take the definition of marketing:
Social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and values with others.” and modify it somewhat:
Social connections by individuals and groups obtaining what they need and want through connections by exchanging ideas and values with others.
Marketing is about connections. Social networking is all about connections. Media is about communication. Without a communication device there would no connection.
Social Marketing is not new, the media devices to encourage and enable individuals and businesses to connect to one another are new.
My definition:
Social Marketing - Individuals and groups obtaining what they need and want through various means of connecting in which they can exchange ideas and values with others.
What does all of this mean to you? It is not only about Twitter or Facebook or YouTube or the other social media devices. It is about the connections you want to make. Define that and then select the appropriate method(s) to make the connection.
@social_dynamics
Tags: Facebook Twitter, mass media, online media, social connections, social media, social networking, traditional advertising, YouTube. social media agency
