Grow Your Business: Using Social Media and Traditional Marketing. Since then, with the advent of social media, the world of branding has changed forever. Consumer marketing companies had to ‘pay to play’ in the market if they were looking to introduce, secure, or build their product. If you wanted to market your product, it usually involved some form of media in order to establish your brand in the marketplace. Traditionally, advertising was the vehicle of choice. The members of each social network have become the individual influencers for product purchases. As Holt points out, metrics compiled over the past ten years support the position that standard branding approaches are failing to deliver in the social media arena. He cites Dove soap as an example of a company that used ‘crowdcultures’ and social media for initiating campaigns that supported cultural change in the beauty industry. While the traditional branding model was more from the top down in the use of advertising to promote and solidify a brand strategy, the social media approach is more along the lines of a bottom up approach for branding. From a business growth perspective, author Holt suggests that you identify your current culture, look at alternatives that will “open up an opportunity”, identify some ‘crowdcultures’ that might work in your industry, strive to get the word out in that industry, and then continue to change your message as the culture changes.
advisor.
Who can forget the epic commercial of the tiny little Chihuahua
saying “I think I need a bigger box?” That advertisement ushered in
a new era of marketing for Taco Bell. The year was 1998. Since
then, with the advent of social media, the world of branding has
changed forever. How did it happen and what can we do about it?
Several decades ago a few television networks, film companies,
magazine corporations, and newspaper publishers virtually
controlled what consumers saw and heard. Consumer marketing
companies had to ‘pay to play’ in the market if they were looking
to introduce, secure, or build their product. If you wanted to
market your product, it usually involved some form of media in
order to establish your brand in the marketplace. Traditionally,
advertising was the vehicle of choice. All of that has changed.
As technology advanced in the form of devices like the digital
video recorder, the consumer began making a turn toward more
selective viewing by skipping ads, which resulted in giving them
the power to select what they wanted to see. The internet itself
gave the consumer the opportunity to avoid having to read anything
that was hardcopy related, such as a newspaper or a magazine.
Branding was undergoing a sea change in the shifting of power from
the consumer marketing companies to the ultimate decision maker,
that of the individual consumer or customers themselves.
According to Douglas Holt, the author of How Brands Become
Icons: The Principles of Cultural Branding, social media has played
a pivotal role in our culture. It has taken society away from mass
marketing to having a direct impact on societal groups, via social
networks. The members of each social network have become the
individual…
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