I have been noticing for some time now, that many businesses try to reach their customers, and promote themselves through social networks. For example, the Irish House pub in Haifa, aside from having a web-site (http://irish-house.co.il/), also has a facebook group, with discussions boards, wall, photos, etc. (Irish house facebook group).
This is called Social Media Marketing, and Wikipedia describes it as an engagement with online communities to generate exposure, opportunity and sales. The number-one advantage is generating exposure for the business, followed by increasing traffic and building new business partnerships. Common social media marketing tools include Twitter, Blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube.
It seams that there is a place for a service that would allow businesses to publish their content in one place, and the service would take care of distributing and disseminating it to various predetermined channels. Since different people hang out in different places, the service would have to create profiles of businesses and match it with the appropriate channels, where their target audiences hang out. There is no point in promoting a bakery on Twitter.
Suggested list of business profiles:
- Web start-ups
- Local businesses (restaurants, shops)
- Music Bands
- Politicians
- more…
Let’s look at the web start-ups profile. These companies need to attract technology-oriented users to their latest cool web apps. Their target audience are young males in their 20s and 30’s, that read TechCrunch, and use Tweeter. In order to promote the brand/service, other than their own web-site, they also have to maintain multiple publishing services. Let’s take young Israeli start-up ClickTale as an example. They promote themselves through following channels:
- Blog
- Facebook group – discussion boards, walls, photos, etc.
- Comments on prominent technology blogs – that’s their CEO replying to people’s comments about company’s service.
All of these channels have to be traced, viewed, answered, and followed up. Seams like a lot of job for busy entrepreneurs. If there was a service, that through intuitive UI would allow to manage online promotion, wouldn’t many businesses be interested in using it, and even paying for some advanced features?
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Interesting idea.Few thoughts regarding this-1. Understanding the nature of social apps on the web, it is mainly a marketing channel for young people, limiting the target audience to a certain, very limited clique of people.As a direct consequence, the potential users of this distribution client, will be mainly as you’ve said – “heap” new web application providers, and pub owners.I don’t think that if i was a bakery owner – I would use facebook, or youtube as a marketing channel, with all the respect for the medium.2. Since such an application, provides an abstraction layer on top of specific web applications (i.e twitter, facebook etc) – it inherently can’t seem to be able to use unique abilities of the underlying program, and can be only used as a generic distribution aid.(publish text, video, whatever).Moreover, most of these applications, don’t have an API -So it is unclear how you are going to achieve it technically.3. Implementing an intuitive UI,is in itself a challenge int this context, if you consider the fact that the underlying services often have different nature (i.e video vs text).
Interesting idea.
Few thoughts regarding this-
1. Understanding the nature of social apps on the web, it is mainly a marketing channel for young people, limiting the target audience to a certain, very limited clique of people.
As a direct consequence, the potential users of this distribution client, will be mainly as you’ve said – “heap” new web application providers, and pub owners.
I don’t think that if i was a bakery owner – I would use facebook, or youtube as a marketing channel, with all the respect for the medium.
2. Since such an application, provides an abstraction layer on top of specific web applications (i.e twitter, facebook etc) – it inherently can’t seem to be able to use unique abilities of the underlying program, and can be only used as a generic distribution aid.
(publish text, video, whatever).
Moreover, most of these applications, don’t have an API –
So it is unclear how you are going to achieve it technically.
3. Implementing an intuitive UI,
is in itself a challenge int this context, if you consider the fact that the underlying services often have different nature (i.e video vs text).
Sorry to be a party pooper -but it is also unclear to me, who will be willing to pay for this service.
Sorry to be a party pooper –
but it is also unclear to me, who will be willing to pay for this service.
Ping.fm is a service that does some of the proposed work:http://lifehacker.com/5194129/pingfm-updates-all-of-your-social-networks-from-one-placeThe difference is that is user-oriented and not business oriented. It’s intended use is not in promoting your business, but rather in publishing your last night’s concert impressions to your friends.
Ping.fm is a service that does some of the proposed work:
http://lifehacker.com/5194129/pingfm-updates-all-of-your-social-networks-from-one-place
The difference is that is user-oriented and not business oriented. It’s intended use is not in promoting your business, but rather in publishing your last night’s concert impressions to your friends.