DISQUS

I agree with Clarence Wooten, I see advertising on mainstream social networks (Facebook and Myspace) working better for branding than advertising. It's like this, you're at the county fair and ya get thirsty. What's going to pursuade you to one drink over another? A passive Budwiser banner or someone interrupting you and your friends ever five minutes trying to sell you a Budwiser? The hard sell is going to drive you to Schlitz just to scorn the people at Inbev. Sns are like a fair. It's a fun place to go where you can spend time with your people in your network. Intrusions aren't welcome. Billboards aren't either but they are tolerated.

I think marketers need to understand that and make their plans accordingly: paid search is for lead generation, sns are for branding. Attempting to use sns for lead generation might even have negative branding effects (see Schlitz). We'll see how this pans out in two to four years.

Btw, I drink neither.

I've heard influencer marketing argued both ways. In a case in b-school we looked at how Converse All Stars spread across Asia. Yes, it started with social influencers (trend early adopters) but having something happen by chance and then using modeling and simulation to try to reproduce it doesn't always work. But early adapters do like to be the first to try new things. I think a good marketing strategy would be to use a platform like this to identify [en-masse] early adapters and give them products for free in exchange for exposure in their circles - "Nick just got a free new I-Phone from AT&T".

Btw, if you call Verizon they'll email you a crack document and their network is cheaper.

Hey Nick,

Since you're basically a "segment" manager for SNS, why not send out a subscription-based daily feed consisting of exec summaries for each topic and cut back on your in-depth analysis to say 4 posts a day?

Nick, I think at the heart of the data portability argument is the need for codes of ethics, and I am not sure if Google and Facebook are addressing these...

By code of ethics I mean that a store is granted permission to access a customer's data if and only if they release that data at an agreed upon time. For example, with retail shopping personal data would be released upon exiting the store; when shopping online personal data would be released when leaving the site, etc. If the store doesn't release the information or funnels it into their CRM, the customer has the right to complain and the store gets blacklisted by the service provider.

Codes of ethics are required because releasing information goes against the mental model business have in place which is reinforced by the millions of dollars they have invested in CRM solutions.

I can see the issue of data portability being almost as important (if not more) than the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in terms of scope. There has to be a basis for trust in order for there to be sharing, but I think that trust has be instilled by unbiased parties.

Good article

I'm sure there is an ad solution in there somewhere whether its co-branding or some form of integrated advertising. And I would disagree that Twitter hasn't crossed the chasm - their product is on main street, however, they aren't charging for it.

Good interview. I think the biggest reason companies fear the "groundswell" is the lack of ownership of the conversation. When you get beyond that fear, SNS can be leveraged for product/service improvements in addition to value added customer services. However, as a marketing tool SNS aren't as easy to track. I think companies should approach SNS as good will as opposed to a marketing tool. So, yes, focus on the relationship and not the technology like Paul said.