Are Consumers Ready For Social Marketing?

Writing by Brick Marketing on Wednesday, 16 of April , 2008 at 3:06 am

There has been a lot of discussion recently revolving around the concept of tracking a users movement on the net and then targeting them with advertising based on their activities. Most of the chatter seems to indicate that consumers are not appreciating this target advertising. It then raises the question surrounding social marketing through the various social bookmarking sites.

One some forums however, the talk seems to indicate that consumers have a general dislike for advertising in general but if they are going to be shown ads, then targeted ads are more preferred. It also seems, as the internet experience of many consumers matures, that many now expect to see some form of social marketing.

The future may well be bright for social marketing as consumers start to use social platforms to find information on proposed purchases. Generally speaking, doing a search on a search engine is likely to return results related to sellers. Doing a search through a social platform is more likely to return results based on user experience and social marketing information.

These results provide consumers with what they want prior to their purchase, either validation of the their choose, or information on which they can base their choice. We are already seeing tech savvy people using various forum communities to discuss products prior to their purchase. One of the reasons for this is that tech companies and those selling tech products have undertaken social marketing strategies through those forums.

Young people and those in the music industry are now using platforms such as Bebo to either deliver their social marketing messages or to connect with others with like interests.

Social marketing is here to stay. Consumers are becoming more conscious of the information that can be found through these sites. Whilst search engines will probably never have to fear them, social bookmarking and social media sites will soon be a consumers first choice to search. Are consumers ready for social marketing? If they are not now - they soon will be.

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Category: Social Marketing

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