The bottom line is always about money.
I think the next big thing in social media will be cracking the code of figuring out how to monetize Twitter and Facebook in ways we can barely imagine. Today’s readings underscored once again that it’s all about data…the “Great Wall of Facebook” Wired article did an excellent job of explaining what’s at stake, and what the huge differences are between Facebook and Google and why Facebook just may figure out how to directly market to each individual facebook member in heretofore unimagined ways. During lunch today I read the article about Catarina Fake (yes- it’s nice to see that there are really smart gals in this field too!) The article underscored once again the value of all the information on the social graph and it’s potential power if it can be fully tapped. Obviously the smart kids at FB and Twitter are on it….and the Googleans are trying not to lose their market position. Something’s gonna give…and I predict it will be sooner rather than later.
Let me channel Vannevar Bush for a moment, and instead of “As We May Think,” let’s ponder “As We May Buy”…because, that, really, is what it all boils down to.
Imagine a day in the not too distant future, when facebook will figure out how to market one- to one – literally. I think that day is closing in on us and I anticipate the day when individual marketing messages that I actually want to read and want to seek out will be presented to me in a way that is compelling and which I will view as a service, not an intrusion. Marketers are already trying this, however clumsily. What if on a weekly basis the information I posted on Fbook and Twitter was amlgamated with every other piece of data about me to serve up a unique helping of products that I would be interested in RIGHT NOW? I get emails from various places that I have purchased products for in the past…one example is Express Jeans. I bought my daughter a pair of jeans a few months ago and now I am the one getting emails for jeans, not my daughter. That’s the kind of anonymous marketing that causes consumers to delete maketing messages without reading them!
What if they cracked the code and figured out how to do “Just in Time” Marketing for the products I need RIGHT NOW? This month’s WIRED article discussed other ways of getting information out of folks and create more of a psychographic profile based on questionaires. That’s another tactic that will become more in vogue, I feel certain.
The challenge, of course, is to get past the “creepy” factor…but I predictt that will be a diffusion issue like many of these other technological advances we’ve dealt with in the past. Who would have imagined years ago that we would all be chattering online about our personal lives? I would guess that in a few years other barriers will fall as well and we will view this one-to-one incredibly personalized marketing as normal rather than creepy.
