AdTech Sydney: Hits and Misses

Latest findings from AdTech Sydney unveil some interesting perspectives on how to handle various components of social media.

Hit

Adnews: Lion Nathan former national marketing director Margaret Zabel stresses media mix is crucial for branded content.
Lion Nathan's '6 Degrees of Separation' branded content for Tooheys Extra Dry would have been more effective with better media choices, its former national marketing director has admitted.

Here is an example where a brand has gone out guns blazing into the social media sphere and realized there are a gaggle of improvements that should be implemented when creating content. Lion Nathan should be applauded for these efforts and realizing the necessary changes they need to make to future content initiatives.

The problem with content today is that there is a volume mismatch. Branded content disappears into the content vortex where the millions of content creators fight for eyeballs. The mismatch lies in the fact that branded content aims to be a short-tail initiative in a long tail world. This is why so many branded content pieces fail. Only a few can ever rise to the top in this fashion.

This is where a more solid media mix comes into play. A brand needs to utlise its capacity to buy media time and invest its dollar into both environments to ensure traction with the right audience.

The lift should be enough to rise above the pack and hit the eyeballs required.

Miss

Adnews: Social media demands commitment
Marketers must avoid hype and commit to the long-term relationships they create in social media, according to a panel at Ad:tech.

This excerpt outlines that any social media activity needs to go for the long haul. It’s an interesting perspective, and one that brands/agencies have been touting since the early days of social media. However as time has passed it has become apparent that:

People care about a brand only when it’s relevant for them.

People might not need to know about your brand on a daily/weekly/monthly basis.

People get bored.

This is a clear case of not using metrics, data and the correct human insight to create a social media strategy which works for a brand in its category in it social media space. The intent to use social media for the long haul does not work for every product and is a statement that should be used with caution.

For many products, their audiences have different social media soft spots. I’ve written a previous post which discusses this briefly. Brands need to create social media strategies which speak to their objectives. If one of those objectives is to effectively manage resource and an organization can’t support activity within a social media environment all day every day, then create a strategy that meets that requirement. And if a fan gets irritated that you aren’t available 24/7, make that fan the 24/7 representative! If they fan is that loyal they’ll love it.

You can also read this post on my company's blog


Love this clip of Greg Wilson. Imagine the world when mixing started, people learned their lessons. If only it was the same in social media