When will social network applications become a mainstream marketing tool? When there is enough consistent evidence of ROI that large agencies feel comfortable to recommend and sell them to their most conservative clients. This will take a while to get to, but the faster it gets there the better - for brands, who if they approach this correctly can engage with users in a way like no other, whilst learning more about their customers than anywhere else on the web; for all of us working in the social media industry; and for users, who will benefit from the increased competition and experience in producing great applications that they choose to use and enjoy.
To get to this stage quicker, people working in the social media space need to understand how agencies think and what evidence they need to see in order to feel comfortable recommending it to clients. It was great to have Duncan Arbour from LBi talking at the Facebook Developer Garage last week. After getting burned trying to make apps for some clients, he recommends sponsorship or advertising within already successful applications where this is possible, rather than building something completely new. In an interview recently with Inside Facebook, Camilo La Cruz from Rapp Collins again said that the failure of many applications to be successful has caused them to be wary.
A big issue that I've had direct experience of is brands and agencies assuming that they can just build an application, chuck it out there, and it will get millions of users. To a very small extent this was possible with some applications back in the early days of the platform, when competition was minimal and viral channels were plentiful. Even then it only happened in a very small number of cases. Now, it is even more difficult - and a proper plan has to be in place to seed and grow the application. Although there are still many viral channels still available through the social networks, by their very nature they require people to be using the application first - and for an application to spread far, they require a number of people across different areas and networks. There is more information on this in my post Jumping the Shark - see slide 5. Seeding effectively is a science in itself, and agencies will be just as annoyed if they end up spend too much on blanket advertising across a social network with very high effective CPAs. An agency wouldn't expect to launch a website with no promotion, and social network applications are just the same.
More and more brands and agencies are realising this; and realising that to really get out there and get an effective ROI they have to put some reasonably significant investment into it, rather than a tiny test budget. The more evidence provided, the more money they'll put into it, and the greater the effectiveness and ROI (as long as it's done properly!).
If you work for a brand of agency, what are your thoughts on social network applications? And if you develop applications, what has been your experience of working with brands and agencies?
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