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What’s the next best thing after social networking sites for marketers?
Another innovation in content delivery. Yes. That’s it. That’s all Facebook is and why marketers are flocking to the medium.
As AOL announced that it would let go of Bebo in April 2010 (yes, another Bebo reference), only a few months later did the news make it out that AOL would be hiring hundreds of reporters for their new media venture Patch.com. In their own words, Patch.com is “is a new way to find out about, and participate in, what’s going on near you […] a community-specific news and information platform dedicated to providing comprehensive and trusted local coverage for individual towns and communities.”
So, citizen journalism, right? Not quite. With the emerging popularity of Examiner.com and subject-specific writers/bloggers spreading their content via their own social networks (“Examiners” are paid on traffic, comments, and social shares of their content, and I hear that it’s barely pennies), Patch.com notes that their communities (what the beats are called) are run by “professional editors, writers, photographers and videographers who live in or near the communities” they are reporting on. Patch is banking on their elevated credibility as opposed to the you-don’t-even-have-to-interview-and-can-write-for-us Examiner.
Moving away from competing with the social networking behemoth, Facebook, AOL is investing in content. Rightfully so as their CEO, Tim Armstrong defines AOL as “a global media content company” in an interview with CNN’s Poppy Harlow. The full interview can be viewed here. Regarding the “hysteria” of paid vs. unpaid content, Armstrong notes that companies have “to be open to the business model that meets the content you’re producing”.
Enter genius marketing/business strategy by, of all organizations… The United States Postal Service. With all of the buzz of internet marketing and earned media through social media, marketers don’t need direct-mail anymore. Why pay for production, shipping and barely any tracking when only a small minority of the recipients will even open the piece? Instead, jump onto FaceSpace and track your followers. Boom. Complete.
Not so. And who better to let you know than the United States Postal Service. Deliver is a magazine geared towards marketers with an attempt to revive direct-mail budgets. Not too bad of an idea from the USPS. Create a niche publication geared towards your actual buyers. Give them content and still promote your agenda (direct-mail budgets).
I mean, I loves me some social media, but the back cover of Deliver Magazine, July 3, 2010, Volume 6, is pretty compelling:
(Written on the paper: “Why are we paying so much attention to this [social media] if HALF the population isn’t”; Response in alternate color: “Cause it’s the cool new thing”).
I give it to you, USPS, clever idea with this Deliver Magazine of yours.
And then… the impetus for this post… Rouge Magazine. Publisher? P&G. Yes. Procter and Gamble. Procter and Gamble published a magazine for women. Yes, that P&G. Comet, the household cleaner P&G. (Okay well, Javelin Custom Publishing Inc. for Procter and Gamble). You can read the Totem (Javelin Custom Publishing is a subsidiary of Totem) brand story about Rouge Magazine here.
I received my first copy of the magazine today (in the mail, thank you United States Postal Service) and was completely in awe – I didn’t order this, this is an amazing piece of content I can waste my time with, and… these are “inspiring ideas by P&G Beauty”. Intrigued, I go through the magazine. Okay, granted, all ads are for P&G brands. Most advice is shrouded in “Head and Shoulders is not just for dandruff”, but it really isn’t that overwhelming salesy. I’m actually quite impressed.
The Fortune 500’s beauty magazine makes sense. Why spend millions on a campaign in Allure or Glamour or any of the over done beauty magazines. You’re competing with plenty of others in the retail stores, why fight for the advertising eyeballs? Chances are, the $50,000 one-month full page spread may or may not drive sales at your local Target. You really can’t measure the ROI on that.
But… create your own content (women read anything that has to do with beauty even though we’ve read the same advice since we were in high school, there are just new advertisements now), advertise your own array of brands, sprinkle your own specific products within the content you’ve produced (I took note of a blouse in their fashion spread and I vividly remember the CG lipstick the model was wearing – of which I might buy), and offer up a couple of coupons in the back. Oh – and did I mention, send the less than 60 page P&G brand-orgy magazine to someone that you identified from one of your retailers as buying a competing product (I’m almost certain I was targeted, pun not intended, based on my Target Visa).
Take it from AOL that threw their attempt at creating a social networking site to rival Facebook away and refocused on content.
Look at the clever way the United States Postal Service is getting marketers to digest content aimed to increase direct-mail efforts.
Even P&G, the consumer goods manufacturing titan is making content part of their overall strategy.
Social platforms such as MySpace and Facebook, YouTube and Blogger, have altered the way that we communicate with each other and digest content. That’s a fundamental shift in how we will do business and interact with our various stakeholders.
But do keep in mind – Facebook wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the content that personal networks produce. You post a picture (you add content), your entire network knows and the voyeurs digest that content and possibly act upon it (comment on your picture). But if it weren’t for your personal networks, and the automatic interesting content that humans are prone to (because realistically, it’s the controversial that gets the ball rolling for discussion), Facebook wouldn’t be where it is today.
The future of innovation is the content itself and it’s delivery. It’s that simple.
And I cannot believe the best examples I have seen are from Procter and Gamble and the United States Postal Service.
For the reference… my copy of Rouge, making its way to the top of bills and news journals:
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