Much has been written recently about the future of brand websites. With comScore and others reporting that users are now spending around 25% of their Internet time within the walls of social networks, these obituaries may not be too far off.
Imagine you are a 24 year old single woman living in New York City and you are on a mission to meet a really hot guy. Let’s assume it is common knowledge that all of the hot guys in Manhattan spend a quarter of their time at a particular Starbucks just outside Times Square. The remaining three quarters of their time is spread amongst the countless other establishments in the city.
Your challenge is that you are a Village girl. You have a local coffee shop that plays your type of music and reflects your style. In order to be one of the countless “other” establishments that the hot guys come to, you need to post fliers and billboards all across town. There are certain areas that will be more targeted, but in general you are talking to the masses.
After chatting with some friends, you learn more about this Starbucks. It turns out that half of the hot guys return every day. This is hard to believe because the local coffee shop only sees its visitors once a month. Here each visitor comes solo, but at Starbucks they bring all of their friends each time they visit.
Now let’s talk relationships. The local guys are all about one night stands. Meanwhile, the guys at Starbucks are open to long term relationships and will let you talk to them each time they drop in.
Unlike the local shop, Starbucks does set rules that its patrons need to follow. Are you ready to abandon the local shop and play by the new rules?
This is just a metaphor. It demonstrates the draw that marketers see in Facebook and other social networks. There are certainly reasons to own your consumer’s experience, especially if it involves e-commerce (though some are now executing sales within Facebook pages). However, many marketing objectives focus on awareness and engagement. These are now often most efficiently achieved within social networks.