How Social Media Is Being Empowered by Traditional Television Advertising

Something struck me when I happened to watch an ad on Greatest Moments in Tailgating history, similar to the video below, featuring Toyota.  There are a series of these ads with different sponsors led in by commentators during a football game analysis.

Instead of informing, persuading or convincing, advertisements tend to take things a bit too far by sneaking in an advertisement.  I remember the first time I watched this transition into this new commercial, at first, I thought I was going to watch something informative, only to be disappointed that I was once again being disturbed by another commercial, something I thought I was done with since I got DVR.  Consumers aren’t just smart now; they are learned, sophisticated, forum-thronging and community-opinion centric. Once again, sponsors are still trying to sell us by tricking us to watch these new commercials.

Many businesses started creating a growing resentment among their consumers for having resorted to sneaking in an advertisement into our entertainment time, just to get that sale.

That made me think how dating, unoriginal and abortive some traditional advertising is, and how it is empowering social media as a way to gain trust in their consumers.

How about alternatives? Social media marketing, for instance relies on collective wisdom of user-generated content. No advertising can work against power like that of the spoken(or written) word and social media is full of that – reviews, opinions, arguments, and a collective wisdom about the actual user experience of thousands of individuals who would have actually tried the product or service.

Apart from the rich credibility, trust and the popularity established on the products and services of the business, sales automatically begin to happen due to the word-of-mouth-on-digital-steroids. Word spreads fast and it is even faster on the Internet. Here are a few tips on how to leverage social media for your business as against traditional marketing:

• Needless to say, you must make sure that you have a great product that delivers value. Too many businesses died an early death just because this part of the business equation wasn’t given the attention it deserves.
• Leverage Buzz-marketing – use the power of people’s opinions, deploy corporate blogs, spend time on forums, and utilize social marketing, etc. Consumers should rant and rave about the products and once this happens, a sale is never going to be an issue for you.
• Pay attention to what your customers are saying. Peep into the forums, have a corporate blog and allow people to comment, keep track of what your buyers are saying about you on Twitter. You get the idea, don’t you?

Use the digitized people power to your advantage. Have you taken to social media marketing in a big way yet?

2 Responsesto “How Social Media Is Being Empowered by Traditional Television Advertising”

1. Ross Simmonds says:

   January 12, 2010 at 11:04 am

   I definitely see your point and agree with you saying that there are more effective ways of creating a relationship between consumers and a brand. When I saw the “tailgate moments” I was wearing my consumer cap and rather than seeing it was sponsored by Toyota, I was only focused on the actually content. The facts are the facts, consumers are tuning out and blocking out traditional forms of advertising. If Toyota wanted to make this a really social and engaging campaign they would have asked the fans for their Tailgate moments. Something interactive and two-way. The days of brands sending out monologues are almost over; consumers want and are now demanding some form of dialogue.

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2. Ruben Quinones says:

   January 12, 2010 at 6:37 pm

   Ross, that’s a good point, if I didn’t have my “social media hat” on, I would have had the same experience. Either way, it did not benefit the advertiser.

   I actually had seen another “tailgate moment”, my first experience to it, that really inspired this post. That first one really caught my attention, but when I saw that it was all an advertisement, I was disappointed that I was not actually watching a some documentary that I expected to learn something from. I know, naive! but I was not schooled on the “tailgate moments” at that point.

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   January 13, 2010 at 12:46 pm

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