South African embraced the Facebook craze in their thousands last year, and since then, social media has become increasingly important to local marketers.<\/p>\n
Social media tools are changing the way advertisers engage with consumers – and how consumers engage with brands – on an unprecedented scale, says online marketing expert Dave Duarte.<\/p>\n
Two very different social media initiatives were started recently.<\/p>\n
Vincent Maher, portfolio manager for social media at Vodacom, waxes lyrical about Google’s latest initiative, FriendConnect.<\/p>\n
“I can’t say this without sufficient melodrama: FriendConnect turns the whole web into a social network … The scale of it is grand, like the Israelites toppling the walls of Jericho with their trumpets, or the rumble of elephants and infantry descending upon the Rhone,” he said in a blog post this week.<\/p>\n
FriendConnect has a sidebar for sites and blogs. Friends from social networks and contact lists can be invited to join the network, signing in with their Google, Yahoo, AIM or OpenID account.<\/p>\n
They can interact with other visitors by making friends, sharing media, posting comments and playing games. For nongeeks who enjoy social media, setting up is easy: just copy and paste the code for the gadgets you’ve chosen and Google does the rest.<\/p>\n
Social media can also be used for sustainability, as Saatchi & Saatchi is doing. The agency earlier this month launched a global sustainability lifestyle movement for companies and people worldwide, called Blue.<\/p>\n
Blue aims to enroll one-seventh of the world’s entire population as members on a global niche social networking community dedicated to this cause.<\/p>\n
“It’s based on the premise that if individuals realize that a single individual effort can make a difference, then collaboratively, enormous change is possible,” says Ian Young, MD of Saatchi & Saatchi in Cape Town.<\/p>\n
Blue is spearheaded by Saatchi & Saatchi’s worldwide sustainability arm, Saatchi & Saatchi S, and moves beyond the enormity of the environmental crisis, towards a social consciousness that aims to address global challenges.<\/p>\n
It is described as a movement for sustainability that embraces the environment, economy, culture and society.<\/p>\n
“Blue aims to inspire 1-billion people around the world to adopt personal sustainability projects (PSPs) in order to solve global problems, specifically through sustainable choices that they can make to enrich their daily lives.<\/p>\n
“PSPs can be anything from growing one’s own vegetable garden to making a commitment to make time to play with the kids outdoors.<\/p>\n
“We’re trying to make sustainability simply irresistible,” says Young.<\/p>\n
The website is in its final trial phase and will be opened for global participation and PSP contributions in February.<\/p>\n
It’s clear that the social media field is only becoming more innovative with the passage of time.<\/p>\n
So a short course aimed at marketers who don’t quite know how to negotiate the new terrain is likely to be welcomed.<\/p>\n
In February, the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business will offer its popular Nomadic Marketing course in Johannesburg.<\/p>\n
Course director Duarte says that knowing how to leverage online media tools for marketing purposes is increasingly crucial for business, but can be tough for even the most tech-savvy people to master without propoer guidance.<\/p>\n
“Navigating your way through the wealth of new online media platforms can be challenging – even for the most computer literate,” says Duarte.<\/p>\n
“It seems that just as you master the concept of a ‘blog’, an endless array of other online tools – such as podcasts, widgets, microblogs, social networks and alternate reality media – confuse the matter even further.<\/p>\n
“And even if you know what these tools are, knowing how to use them effectively and to your advantage is another matter altogether,” he says.<\/p>\n
Duarte says that though new media tools have become increasingly prominent, many marketers are still unsure of how to integrate these elements with traditional media, how to design and implement a successful campaign and what take-out to expect from the different online platforms.<\/p>\n