Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Advertising is Dead

Social Media is quickly changing the way we communicate with consumers and because of it, the old model of advertising is dead.

Advertising has long been about guessing what your customer needs. Using demographics and other customer profile data, advertisers have tried to narrow it down to "Target" consumers and show them an ad that they will respond to. But in the end, its just a guessing game because advertisers don't really know what the customer needs. They just try and guess as best as they can. The problem is, its a one way communication.

Social Media has opened up a two way communication. Now we can get feedback from consumers like never before. Anthony Power has always said that "Marketing is the alignment of solutions and needs to everyone's benefit." Rather that guessing what a customer needs, why not just ask them?

Social Media gives us the ability to have our customers tell us their needs. This is marketing.Tweet Bite

This allows us to not just advertise to them, but to truly market to them, to everyone's benefit.