Social Media - are we getting it?

Jumping on the New Year’s resolution band wagon, I’m determined to blog-start into the new year with regular posts. No time like the present.

Over the past couple of days it has been interesting to watch a wave of activity on the social media front. It would seem that 2009 could just be the year where organisations start to really understand that engaging their audiences, rather than ‘targeting’ them is the way of the new world.

Tim Burrowes in his blog mUmBRELLA did a roundup of some recent viral campaigns which you can find here. These show that while marketers are cognisant of the power that consumers have to help disseminate corporate messages, navigating the limitations that many marketing departments have to be irreverent, challenging or pithy is very tricky. And as Tim states in his blog, there are only so many truly original ideas. It’s great to see organisations giving it a go but it’s probably worth them having a cold hard think about what sort of content is really going to cut it.

In terms of engagement, viral campaigns really only require a community to watch, filter, endorse and forward to their friends and colleagues. So, while they provided early signs of the power of online networks, the real power of social media is in the ability to create ongoing engagement and enable audiences to create their own content that compliments the brand. Much like Apple who have people ranging in age from 14 to 50 submitting content that could be perceived as brand ads, or create the creative thinking on which the ads are based.

The Best Job in The World campaign currently underway, is a great example. While they have a viral video here - which is mediocre at best – it’s been the UGC aspect to the campaign that I expect will keep the campaign alive. With the applicant videos posted on the site and viewers given the ability to rate each application, it creates far more interest and colour than any other traditional competition or stunt.

It’s their ability to access traditional media with good pick up yesterday in international press, coverage in The Australian, and Channel 7 Sunrise giving it a hammering, that no doubt drove the majority of the traffic to the site. And stay tuned for the announcements of the successful applicant. The campaign that just keeps on giving.

Kudos for incorporating all the notes - UGC, viral and heritage media (nod to SilkCharm :).