Posted by Peter Brady on Tue 10th July 2007 at 06:00 AM, Filed in Blog PR
Every year new marketing gimmicks become the must have accessory to any successful campaign. Many lose their effectiveness over time, others fall to the way side. So what’s different about this blog lark?
The simple answer is cost effective, far reaching delivery of a campaign message. This is rooted in the gradual transformation of content consumption. We are all moving away from a society where TV schedules, newspapers and magazines dictate how and where media is consumed. Instead we are now offered the opportunity to select what, when, where and how we consume media. That’s a radical transformation in philosophy and it’s not stopping there.
Media isn’t only for consumption anymore, it’s also about participation and contribution. Blogs, YouTube, FlickR, MySpace, Facebook all sit under the umbrella of “social media”, “social networking” and “user generated content”. The all encompassing term for this is Web 2.0 media. A label that must have been thought up by a Hollywood executive! Although, personally I would have preferred “Return of the Killer Web”.
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The revolution is here! Or at least that’s the way it feels in light of the latest research from eMarketer.
As old media continues to decline, people media such as blogs and Social Networks look set to become big business over the next 5 years.
According to Media Week:
“Ad spending on Web sites that have built their traffic on user-gen staples like social networking, photo sharing and amateur video is expected to soar to $4.3 billion in 2011, according to a new report issued by eMarketer. That’s a whopping increase of 330 percent versus the $1 billion expected to be spent in the space this year – which is itself more than double the $450 million in ad revenue tracked by eMarketer in 2006.”
There were fears that this sea change in user generated content would run out of steam and ad revenues with it. However, a rapidly growing army of marketers and PR companies are realising how this brave new world is here to stay. Why? Simply because the figures are now speaking volumes:
eMarketer has estimated that by 2011, there will be 95 million Web users creating content online, up from 64 million last year.
The point to note from this is that users do not only generate, they also consume content. That’s a growing and powerful target audience for business to tap into. The demographic of these users is interesting too. We know they are predominantly young, discerning early adopters - viral heaven!
