How Social Media Drives Oblique Business Advertising

 The full power of social media as a business tool is just beginning to evolve. Sites like Facebook which are creating personalities for their products are just one way that businesses have found to engage with those online and help to bring themselves more business. By creating a persona instead of an institution, people are more likely to react to these businesses, psychologically, as if they were a friend. This powerful marketing tool has been long used, but today it is even more powerful.

Twitter and Pinterest

The newest tools in the social marketing department are twitter and pinterest. Twitter seems to be most often used by creating a pithy teaser and a link to something else. This may benefit businesses directly or indirectly. The tweet seems to be most successful, however, when it is applied indirectly, and relates to something like a funny blog with an oblique message supporting a particular business. Pinterest, however, has a few interesting things going for it in regards to advertising. The biggest one is that as a reader, you are not limited to a small circle of voices that you subscribe to. Instead, you choose a topic of interest, and you will see both the new and the popular together. This creates opportunities for people to see sites they had no idea they wanted, and to use them as a basis for knowledge, or better yet, purchase. For example, a person looking for outdoor hot tubs might stumble across some Blue Green Resorts pins, and get excited about staying in a location with a beautiful example. A spontaneous person would be likely to link to this and buy a weekend, particularly if an incentive is attached to the pin like a contest or sale.

Multiple Platforms

While some people are visual, others are idea-driven. A social media campaign that offers both words and photos meant to capture attention (separately, not together) will be more likely to target a wider group of followers. Word campaigns that do well are either useful, funny, or both. They also create an implicit loyalty with regular readers, as they are subconsciously grateful for receiving something of value for free, and may return this gratitude with brand loyalty.

Trick or Service?

While some see this as a trick, others see this as a service. This is not a new argument, however, as there have been free entertainment offerings with implicit advertisements for centuries. Television, sponsored festivals, and many other things fall into that category. They create a situation where a business looks like a good guy for donating air time/sponsoring a festival, and a client can feel both free to purchase nothing, or happy to support a business who loves what they do. This idea is really the crux of why social media and business go hand in hand.