THE FUTURE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IS MOBILE: There, I've said it. Remember this post at the end of next year. I have been doing some reading and reminiscing about the past year in social media and social networking. And while there are still a fair number of Negative Nelly's who insist that Twitter is a waste of time, those who are GenY marketing-savvy see the potential for creatively engaging a new generation of communicators. (Tune in to the sister video post on this topic at my day job: Cool Springs Press: The Future of Social Media).
The strength of social media, particularly as it relates to marketing, is that messaging can be very specific and the target market drill down can be microscopic. Which makes it the perfect channel for mobile marketing...something that I am predicting will explode next year.
Previous mobile marketing attempts have had limited success, primarily because it has been little more than push messaging via texting. The payoff is in specials, deals, etc...which is important to customers. But discounts are not sufficient motivation to grab the attention of consumers who are receiving thousands of messages like that over the course of a day.
The task is to differentiate your products and prices from all of the others...and the best way to do that is to create relationships with your customers. Brand recognition and loyalty is best built via word of mouth and testimonial. Social Media is by its nature relational and to a high degree, personal. Conceptually, it just makes sense that mobile devices would be a great platform for fostering affiliations with customers.
As always, the key will be to offer valuable content in the course of marketing outreach. And this content will be easier to deliver as new phone have faster download and bigger memories. This new generation of mobile marketing will continue to move us toward a model of building richer, more engaging models of customer care. A trend that I eagerly embrace.
