I jumped into the fray on how will advertising morph in social media when I commented on one of my favorite thinkers, Stowe Boyd's blog post on syntax for advertising or sponsored tweets. I'll just pick up here from that post and subsequent comments. The issue is should Tweets that are paid for have an AD or #ad in each of them. Brian Solis continued this conversation in a Tech Crunch called Full Disclosure to which I commented.
I hope that revenue generation and market awareness/demand morphs from interruption and manipulation into support and association. An example is this, interruption - my blog post about toys is paid for by Mattel and is about Mattel. This Mattel toy is terrific, my kids use it all the time, yada, yada, yada. Clearly something I'd label AD (advertisement).
An example of support - my blog editorial content is about kids and learning. I am able to focus on kids and learning because Mattel gives me a portion of what I need to pay my mortgage every month. I don't say good or bad things about Mattel based on their check. I just focus on my editorial content and my readers. Something I'd label SP (sponsor)
Another wonderful example of support and association is the SETEPS program in St. Paul, MN at the University of St. Thomas. STEPS stands for the Science Technology, and Engineering Preview Summer camp. My daughter benefited from this experience just last week by learning about aerodynamics, building a model plane and flying it, all for free, because these companies funded the STEPS program. Will I buy from them or invest in them? Yes. Is this form of product/company awareness better than a commercial that attempts to convince me I'm lacking something in my life?
Social media is about having a stake in each other. That doesn't mean social media is not a place to market. It's a place to make an investment in, a place to unify across a like-minded community. This concept is not new, organizations do this all the time today in giving back to the community. Social media allows this "feel good" form of marketing to have greater impact and be a more accountable source of direct revenue and other measurable business objectives for a company that fully embraces the concept, the technologies and the communities.
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