The Biggest Untapped Market
The Tendency for Big Brands to Look to Social Networks for Sales First
January 19, 2011
David C Skul
After reading a white paper by a huge multinational promotional, retail and shopper marketing agency that specializes in both branding and selling it became obvious that big brands and the marketing firms that represent them are looking to social networks for sales first and foremost. This posture is, indeed, an unfortunate one for the larger brands. Their eventual realizations of how the untapped power of these social networks will “drive” sales or detract from them will eventually take a heavy toll on their bottom line. Legitimacy and Loyalty are the cornerstone of sales and apparently the big brands are failing to recognize how to communicate with the social network market space effectively. The apparent trend occurring within these brands is an attempt to leverage social network spheres as another push marketing medium. The the overwhelming number of users of this medium do not appear to be cooperating
Why do big brands insist to ignore the fact that they are only able to capture small percentages of these marketplaces, regardless of demographic makeup, with this approach? It has been an ongoing trend in social networks to shun the imposition of push marketing techniques. The mantra of “No Advertising Here!” has an almost cult-like following. It is also proven that discussions occurring in these social networks influence buying patterns and loyalty. However, social network consumers indicate that only 6% of them follow a brand via this channel. Why do some understand and adapt to this statistic while others ignore it?
