Start promoting your brand and products on social networks people use


Getting through to Generation A and Generation B customers is really a challenging task at best. They're marketing-savvy (more than half of all Americans have been on a marketing course of some sort, and Britain is not far behind), and cynical about conventional marketing. They seek control of all their interactions with businesses, and have been brought up with the concept that the consumer is king - they are certainly not effortlessly manipulated.

They've also been brought up with the internet. Anyone under the age of 30 has trouble remembering a world without cellphones and the internet, and virtually all of them are computer literate and regular net users.

They've no difficulty in setting up software to block pop-ups and banners, so advertising to them in any obtrusive way is somewhere in between difficult and impossible - but in the exact same time they'll consciously seek out information about products.

This combination of elements is causing a revolution in advertising and promotion generally. Traditionally, advertising consisted of a series of unsought communications, i.e., communications the consumer was not looking for, aimed at persuading individuals to purchase. Now, advertising has become largely sought by the customers, and its aim is to "nudge" the person to buy one brand rather than an additional when they are already 99 percent committed to buy. But how to do the nudging?

YouTube has been one of the phenomena of the twenty-first century. It allows individuals to post and share videos on the internet, and literally millions of people have done so. Some of the clips are no more than a few seconds of shaky "home movies" taken on a cellphone, others are professionally produced videos.

Some movie businesses have put clips from their latest releases onto YouTube, and popular TV shows sometimes appear - Shaun the Sheep has appeared on YouTube, to name but one.

In some cases, companies have put commercials on YouTube. Strictly speaking, this really is against the terms of use: YouTube specifically excludes videos that aim to solicit trade, but in general this has been interpreted to imply that the business does not allow advertising that directly seeks a response. Common promotional advertising is allowed provided it's interesting and amusing for YouTube subscribers. YouTube had 160 million unique visitors worldwide as of March 2007.

Other websites include MySpace, Google Video, and Yahoo! Video. Brands ranging from Gap to Victoria's Secret, Calvin Klein, Nike, and Adidas are all on the video-sharing websites someplace: the medium is, needless to say, available to any business, no matter how big or little. Obviously, there's no control over who will (or won't) see the clip, but with a lot of subscribers that hardly matters. In any case, anyone who's interested will seek out the clip - that is sort of the point!

Produce as slick a video as you can. Use professionals if feasible. Maintain it humorous, or surprising, or entertaining in other ways. Do not patronize your audience. They're on the site to be entertained, not to be preached at.

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This article was sent to us by: Brian Johnson at 01212011

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