There are two central concerns in online marketing: creating attractive content and distributing that content effectively. Both factors are dependent upon the industry, product or service and the relevant online market.
Rather, both factors require an accurate Q2 (quantified and qualified) assessment of said market. To address both factors, one needs a Q2 evaluation of the social media surrounding the target market.
Content is three dimensional. It should be visual, viral, and current.
Good content is visually appealing to one’s clients or consumers. The content must be viral in that the information is info that the consumers wish to share–it must infect the individual’s network and not just the individual. Current content is essential. Studies emphasise that WOM (word of mouth) in the chaotic market that is online social media has a “sensitive dependence on initial conditions“. That is, change one letter in the address bar and one’s entire audience is new. Current content combines the past and the present. Current content knows the real time concerns and considerations as well as the history of the immediate trends. Current content connects the initial “sensitive dependencies” to the modern market. It is that connection and timely awareness, cleverly and creatively communicated, that makes worthy content viral. And zing, you’ve just infected a network of interested individuals, aka customers, clients, your market.
But wait.
Content requires effective distribution. Despite the chaos of the online market, or perhaps due to this chaos, esoteric communities and networks specialising in equally valid content remain entirely sealed off from one another. In quantum physics, this phenomenom of multiple realities is called the multiverse. In business, it’s called redundant.
Successful distribution online is also three dimensional. Successful distribution needs to be authoritative, influential, and proactive. The distributor should have intimate knowledge of her market. Her authority should be obvious in her engagement with the online community. Distribution needs to be influential. The method of distribution must be broad, connecting several different networks and always searching for additional networks to add to the growing spiderweb of interconnectivity. This is why all distribution must be proactive, soliciting potential clients to access the content that will influence and create new markets.
June 21st, 2008 at 3:05 pm
I saw an episode of Studio 60, we got it on DVD. The chairman of NBS says something that amused me - “Content may be king, but distribution pays the bills”. You are right that distribution impetus is now increasingly connected to the viral aspect of the content. Many web sites and video now make it easier to engage with this by making sharing easier and tagging is simpler. This means that if the content is good the barrier to sharing is zero, but it still doesn’t make the content interesting. I look forward to understanding more of how what becomes a viral phenomenon can be predicted by using previous patterns from successful campaigns, but I believe there will always be something magic that makes some viral successes just too difficult to predict ;0
June 23rd, 2008 at 11:23 am
Research and experimenting the different strategies for online marketing is important and could help a lot. There are lots of references that are available online for free and you don’t have to spend a lot just to get those useful strategies.