The Evolution of the Online Social Order

What is an average internet browser looking for online? I’am sure, if God walked into the reality of an online marketer, this would be the query he would be peppered with. Such is the varied online habits of the mostly 15-35 year old demographic that targeted marketing appears mostly a messy confusion than an exact science. People’s taste varies with every new development of the ‘social’ kind and allegiance changes as quickly as it is created.  

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn are the new social media hubs- online gatherings where people flock to in large numbers with varied intentions- being social, being personal, all business or simply to play animated games. While an earlier generation would have ventured outside to meet friends, scanned the newspaper stands for their daily fix of information and World news, played snooker and hung out at smoky taverns or flirted through the means of scented letters and eye-grabbing attire, the latest fad is to do all this online. Everything that is available in the real-world as a service, product or facility is now available online through the magic of e-commerce. The latest avatars of this innovation are the deals sites, the B2B and B2C sites, role-play portals as well as dedicated gaming websites. In a recent poll conducted by a popular Men’s magazine, more than 60% of the people who polled would rather spend an idle Saturday online rather than hanging about in the real world. As Bob Dylan sang, ‘Times they are a changing’.

In terms of businesses however, this is a welcome development. Marketing is all about targeting your audience with messages that appeal to them- the bigger the subjected audience, the better it is in terms of promotional effect and costs saved. Previously, an average marketer would find it hard to capture his chunk of interested, like minded audience, however thanks to the present trend of online social groups, dedicated websites pertaining to specific causes, email marketing and the ease at which opinions can be mass circulated over the internet, people with similar interests often flock together and actively advertise their presence. Online marketing has emerged as a major promotional tool and is often a more preferred scenario for companies who can afford to advertise big with a limited budget. Can you imagine a future when conventional business promotion is a thing of the past? If not, it’s about time you watched ‘Minority Report’ again.

The internet is big and it’s here to stay. The masses who have embraced it represent different demographics, tastes, cultures, preferences and stereotypes. As much as we live and play on god’s green earth, an adventurous part of us wants to disengage, lounge on an easy-chair, login and explore the contours of our digital, online lives.

The Emergence of Online Marketing

Online Marketing- these words conjure up an image of something impractical for a vast majority of ‘traditional’ businessmen while it’s the byword for quick, cost-effective and massive self-promotion for the new age visionaries, basking in the influential effects of Facebook and twitter. With the advent of technology and the internet, more and more businesses want to piggyback their products, services, concepts; you name it, on the infinite possibilities and the lucrative x-factor afforded by the big WWW. Why should you stay back?

The most common accusation against online marketing these days is that ‘everyone is doing it’. Hello, when did we miss the ‘it’s unique and must try’ stage? Online marketing allows you to connect with your customers on multiple points- customize your promotional package to appeal based on location, include snippets that appeal at a personal level, the point being that with online marketing you can reach a focussed, niche audience that conventional marketing- hoardings, television and newspaper ads, cold-calling etc. cannot achieve. It’s more effective to individualise your campaign, to make it seem personal and targeted than merely ‘putting it out there’ while expecting your intended audience to respond positively and reach back to you. 

This is the age of web2.0 and social media. Blogging and socially connective sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn serve the dual purpose of generating an appreciative market as well as connecting you to a limitless segment of people on the 2^nd, 3^rd…nth degree based on the people you are pitching to and their network of friends and family. The cost factor is a surprising plus point too.  A traditional marketing campaign could run into some serious money based on the promoter’s expectations and even then, the marketing effect could be very limited and quickly forgotten- however, with online marketing, a single qualified marketer could run a very successful campaign and reach a greater demographic in quicker time. Imagine, you are a start-up claiming to produce the world’s best golf clubs and you are located in India- your target audience meanwhile is primarily from the United States. With conventional marketing, the road to self-promotion looks long and expensive. However, an online marketing campaign, well-conceived and directed could ensure that your golf clubs could end up in the very capable hands of Tiger Woods in record time.  One of the important means to promote your business would be to come up with more interactive business blogs.

Traditional marketing remains a disjointed affair. You pitch your ideas to an assembled audience and wait for a response- often, your target audience forgets about you when bombarded by more options from your competition. Concept retention by the targeted market can be achieved by planned email campaigns. Creativity has and always will appeal to people- thus, with the handy online tools that give your audience a sense of control rather than a feeling of being subjected without their choice; they can be regularly reminded of your products and services catalogue. 

The trend of online marketing is here to stay and growing at an exponential rate. Businesses now have the options of E-commerce, Business to Consumer (B2C) and Business toBusiness marketing (B2B) websites to promote their wares and build strong and lasting followings. A competent company without its own website is frowned at while whole shopping malls have been customised to fit into e-commerce portals. The emergence of smartphones and ready availability of internet ‘on-the-go’ has resulted in more and more people spending a massive chunk of their day online. Where there shall be smoke-there shall be fire. Where the hordes of people shall congregate, you with your products and services must be there. Online marketing is all about speaking to your customers in the popular language that they understand best.

How to Promote your own business through Blogging

Success of any business depends upon the team of people working for it and of course lots of quality Leads & continuous Sales. Business owners and heads run behind sales and marketing team to bring loads of quality leads those can be converted to sales and thus brings the revenue to the business. And for the consistent growth in business, sales and marketing people keep on looking for probable channels of bringing quality leads. Along with core or field marketing, internet or online marketing is one of the major source of attracting leads to the business, for which business need to have a good website. Only having a good website will not help the business and it is essential to optimize the website for all the major search engines as well as market the business online through various available mediums.

Online marketing always been the most cost effective medium to market the business. And businesses generally hire a team of online marketers in-house or hire an agency to handle their digital marketing work, who  use to work a lot for the promotion and marketing of the business through different activities like Search Engine Optimization (for organic rankings on major search engines like Google), Search Engine Marketing (paid advertising through Pay-per Click), Email Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Social Media Optimization & Marketing and many more. But they do each and every activity only as their regular work and without getting involved into it at the core. It is their job to deliver the results as per the business requirement.

Here arise the need of business owners or heads to step in and get involve in some of the activities as they have the core knowledge of their business and that information should be spread across the web and reach to the targeted audience through some mean. They can write anything useful about the business and its services or products using different platforms like website itself, Web Blog, press releases, articles, eBooks, white papers, case studies, etc.  But apart from Web Blog all other platforms have their own limitations in terms of regular updates, content, submission, promotion, etc. The Blog is an important platform through which one can express everything at the same place and attract relevant readers or visitors. The Blog can be the official blog of the website or the personal blog of any individual person that they can configure on free blog websites like Blogger.com or WordPress.com and it should be updated on regular basis with the useful and relevant content. Visitors looking for good information about your business, products or services will definitely come again and again.

Apart from writing about their own business, services & products, business owners can also write about the other companies, partners, manufacturers, suppliers, or business service providers with whom they have done some deals. The Blog is very helpful in providing useful information to the targeted audience and interested readers will follow the Blog for more information. Business Owners or head are the best person to describe about the business in detail and their writings will have the highest authority of the content for its readers. For them it’s like a make or break kind on condition, they can attract good number of people through their good content and on the other hand they can also damage the image of their business as well as themselves by writing something bad. Hence they have to very careful and cautious about the content going in to their Blogs.