Socializing with your Ads

Google is an advertising platform, not a merely a search engine..

Come tomorrow, what we are going to say is...

“ Facebook is an advertising platform and not a Social Network.. ”

Let’s look at some statistics – Google is already raking revenues of $ 23 Billion a Year

Facebook which publishes 50 billion ads per month is slated to earn about 2 billion approx next year.

More than 2 mil. Websites have integrated with Facebook , including over 80 of ComScore's U.S. Top 100 websites and over half of ComScore's Global Top 100 websites.

I’m not concerned with numbers, what I’m more concerned about is the possibilities..

The possibilities of growth for Facebook to serve ads beyond it’s own platform.

Now suppose these websites (which are commercial) start showing ads via Facebook. So while reading an article about Manchester United on the New York Times, there will be an ad on the side saying that 4 of your friends Like this or could even show its ( Man Untd. Page’s) latest update. You maybe reading an e-book and it’ll show an Ad of the other books that your friends Like.

These ads could also show up on Wordpress blogs (Google might not really want it on Blogger) Personally I would feel these to be much less intruding than the current Flash ads and I myself might publish Facebook Ads on my Personal blog [ as if any one reads it ;) ] which otherwise I would have despised.

So even here we could have the same ads along beside an article on Nokia or a Samsung , with the ad showing their respective Likes or recent updates.

What does this do to Facebook?! Well it simply brings in more dough and for us bloggers/publishers its makes the ads more social, neat, sophisticated or any good adjective one might want to glorify this with.

So think again .. is Facebook a social Networking Site or a Social Advertising Platform, depends on which side of the coin you are looking at.

Advantages of Social Media To Small Business

We all are aware of the impact of social media websites. A huge amount of people have been participating in social media websites and this has resulted in increased investment in the growing field of social media marketing. A large number of small businesses today have started using social media ideas and strategies in their goals. This is because of a number of reasons.

Social media websites include Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Linkedin etc. Many small businesses have become a part of these sites and have created their profile pages intending to get more traffic and new customers. It is important to remember that you cannot attract traffic just by creating a profile page; you have to actually be involved and participate in a community.

Social Media Marketing is the marketing strategy used to create content for your website and displaying it on Social News and Bookmark sites. The techniques of social media marketing can benefit websites and help them to grow very quickly. To mention, some of the advantages of social media marketing for small businesses are:

1. More awareness about your brand: If you are able to create a successful social media marketing campaign, there will be a lot more talk about your brand online. When users are appealed by your message, they will spread it across which will be more effective than traditional methods.

2. Quick results: If your message is on the front page of a major news, social video and bookmark site, you will be able to drive large amounts of traffic instantly. It is not necessary that the traffic will result in conversations but momentum will be created in the right direction.

3. Cheap prices: Social media marketing can be used as a replacement for conventional advertising and this is possible at a pretty lower price. With social media marketing, you do not need to spend huge amounts of money like you would have had to with the traditional mediums like newspapers, magazines, television, radio and many more.

4. Improves ranking on search engines: Social media marketing campaigns have an effect on search engine rankings. A huge amount of back links can be attained which improve your ranking on search engines.

5. Compatible with other mediums of advertising: If you start a social media marketing campaign, it does not mean that you need to stop you traditional methods of marketing. Social media marketing can be used along with traditional advertising and marketing.

6. Role of influencers: Through social media marketing, initiators and influencers reach audiences and encourage them to choose your brand. A person will always prefer to buy something that people recommend rather than just blindly make purchase from a faceless company.

7. Sidestepping and blindness: The age old methods of advertising online such as banner ads have almost lost their significance. Social media marketing has the capability to attract large amounts of traffic to your website without the help of traditional methods of advertising because of the increase in ad blindness.

[ Some Personal Rants:

To your surprise , the Best part about a Small Business Owner is that i really don't have to Sell the idea of Social Media to them. SMB's have the advantage of quick decision making and an appetite of taking risks thus one doesn't really have to push Social Media. So after knowing the Why? they simply ask How and When to do it? whereas corporate co.'s still loose the plot by being stuck on WHY?

In-fact some SMBs in the engineering space are pushing me to start their twitter a/c's when an eCommerce sites are better bet or at-least the first step towards their Online presence.]

Well Social Media provides you a simple platform to be out there for your customer and better still with your customers. So as they say .. your next customer is just 140 characters away...

Govt. Goes Social

Look who's logged on to Facebook.. The Govt. of India.

Well Dept Of Science and Technology's NSTEDB along with Dell India have come up with The Technology and Mentorship Forum to foster entrepreneurship in India.

They are actively advertising on Facebook ..urging users to unleash the enterpenuer within themselves , with Top Industry Leaders as Mentors to guide them.

Anthem Academy is the Knowledge partner for this initiative. Anurag Gambhir of Anthem Academy Says " Social Media is where the founders of new start-ups , next generation entrepreneurs are, so its a logical choice to tap this platform and spread the word"

Well now this is one Socialist move which many would welcome...

Make Competition Irrelevant

Try n forget about your competition and following their every move..

Success lies not in being better than your competition but making it irrelevant..

Now here's a company whose sales grew by 90% and it's Profit by 77%

I'm talking about Nintendo .. and its ausome success Wii

Nintendo didn't just beat off it's comepetitor Sony.. it just crushed it

Nintendo makes $ 40 profit for every console sold,,

and PlayStation a loss of $ 200

and Nintendo didn't spend billions of $$ in R&D unlike Sony, it just did things differently and created a product which gave birth to a whole new category in itself..

So what should we learn from this.. and what should our new products be..

We should take note of the following

INSTEAD OF

a.Competing in Traditional Markets

b. Exploiting existing demand

c. Choosing Between differentiation

or Low Cost

d. Trying to Beat our Competition

WE SHOULD

a. Create new Markets

b. Capture and create New Demand

c. Differentiation and Low Cost

d. Make competition Irrelevant

Many Companies have done this before and continue to do this.

e-bay came out with an online market place which anybody could connect to easily.It's growth lies squarely in the hand of it's customers.

Amazon has done this through Kindle which has changed the way people stack up books( ok ok read books) Apple Inc did it with It's i-pod n then the i-phone..

Google keeps on doing it .. with Adsense and Adwords the most successful examples..

Facebook has done it to social media.. 350 million users ..."Facebook Connect" being used by 60 million users to connect to various websites..

n Twitter has done it perfectly with its 140.. i really admire Twitter.. it's not a typical social networking site.. its beyond that..its a DIY tool for anything from garnering Knowledge to twepeeping on paris hilton.. and it will co-exist with Facebook..

So will LinkedIn..

What these companies have in common is that they are actually Different from their competitors..

n they have answered the right questions..

• What factors should be eliminated which the Industry takes for granted?
• What factors should be reduced well below industry standards?
• What factors should be raised well above industry standards?
• Which factors should be created that industry has never offered before?

@xploreROYalself once tweeted .. what differentiates smart from brilliant is : smart knows what to do and brilliant knows what not to

So these Brilliant companies Know the answer to those of the above question relevant to them and have worked on that..

Hence for all of us Innovation is the key.. be different not because it's a Fad..

But because you can deliver something worthwhile..

Then you just sleep easy..for who cares for competition... its irrelevant...