Facebook Comments & Resulting Click Conversion Data:

http://awe.sm/Nmk

Facebook and Facebook Connect are cool, but this all really just boils down to “the stream” to me. Friends sharing info with friends on what to choose, what they like, where to go, etc. Conversation in the micor-community. It’s real.

I see Twitter not as a fad, but as an indicator of the larger movement – micro-communication that’s personalized and more targeted for Users. (regardless of how business models do or don’t fit in to this)

Users have more control (if they want it) in the “social” world online… and more control is likely coming for users in the Search world as well.

Whether it’s Twitter, or a Facebook, or whatever “stream” of comments and posts, people and services are finding unique ways to better organize themselves and share information.

There is real value in improving the control, efficiency, and personalization options available to users, and I don’t see this a passing fad in any way. It’s part of a move towards a personalized and more inter-connected web (for users who care and want it)

The “mainstream” of course has not fully adopted these or care yet though. But part of the 200+ MM FB users, and millions of active Twitterers seem to find it valuable in the way these micro-channels allow conversations to happen and for information to be organized.

Not everyone will want it… but I believe that the big traffic channels (Google, Facebook, Yahoo, etc.) will all start integrating more options for users to “personalize” what they find that’s valuable, and do it with help from their friends who have already been there and commented, tagged or rated.

It’s just a fad site that offers a small amount of value in some very narrow ways. There are a few business models (like IM Guru’s) which work on Twitter, and a few sales and customer support strategies (like Dell’s), but other than that – it’s useless.

I was going to say, although Google pricing has probably changed a lot I don’t think the basics of marketing have, for hundreds of years.

That’s actually one of the things I like about direct marketing, it’s often comfortable talking about and relying on old school books and manuals. What worked 100 years ago, still works now.

Unless we have our marketing consultant heads on, in which case it’s tempting to say that everything has changed, all the time.

I think what has usually changed when we take this kind of “step back and review” is US.

We, the observers, have changed.

The change is, whether we are keeping up or lagging behind what was a constant all along.

For example “branding” as in – providing a positive experience that the customer will remember as uniquely US and want to experience from US again.

At no time in history was that a bad idea.

Some people may have been able to get away without providing that temporarily because advertising was so cheap.

But now that is no longer the case, some people have simply had to learn what was already there.

They changed, not the market or their needs.

So, maybe another way to look at this is to re-phrase the question. Instead of asking ourselves “what has changed or what will change in the future” we might ask “what fundamentals are we currently fooling ourselves into thinking don’t matter right now?”

What I think is a really interesting question is – “what role has the social thing, playing in marketing in the past, before the internet?”

I mean, let’s go all the way back to Clueless’s caves and see what history teaches us.

If we remove the hype that we as marketers and consultants create, how much real value is left from a marketing perspective in all the “social stuff”?

I think it’s also worth inventing a pair of glasses that filter out or make internet marketers invisible, not just for the obvious benefits but to allow us to observe individual sites or communities more clearly.

They say that any experiment is changed by the simple act of being observed, right? Well, I think to measure the value of twitter, you would have to take away all the internet marketers to clearly see what is going on.

I bet it would be a much, much quieter place.

Don’t get me wrong, when it comes to communities having real value, as Mulder would say “I want to believe”. But like Scully, I seem to have miraculously missed seeing much hard evidence of their existence so far.

The name of the game right now is optimising the channel to the offer and vice versa – although – that’s always been the game

Nothing in marketing has changed since time began.

It’s always been the age of attention. There’s always been too much to focus on.

Back when we hunted deer with slings, I’m sure there was pitching for the new and untested bow/arrow invention along with the requisite testimonials and emerging engagement mediums to sell it through. Possibly there were marketing forums on the benefit of animal hide ad placements over painting on cave walls – because painting on cave wall placements might have worked 10-15 years ago, but doesn’t work now.

People wanted their bow/arrow ads in an easy to carry and walk around format – plus those animals hide placements are also used for warmth at night – resulting in a %600 increase in exposure and increasing user engagement.

The reality is this:

As the internet scales out, there are passing opportunity’s to channel market broadly – and the offers which work on those channels don’t necessarily come with a sustainable branded business. That might be because those models piss a lot of people off – but they are transitional – and necessary for the development of the internet medium as companies find more sustainable ways to monetize.

It’s taking a lot of time and energy to scale internet advertising – and it’s got a long way to go.

I dare say that the brand model of hot topic media’s sub brands is based on a few key strategic relationships – and the partners in the business who are not privvy to those leveraged relationships probably struggle. But I don’t know much about your business to be honest – that’s my perception from the outside.

In any event to summarize: nothing has ever changed about people ever – EVER. The technology is changing, non sustainable business models come and go – and monetize what may be too expensive to develop without them. And those who are in good positions in the mix are able to create a branded business – but – having a branded business is not necessary to make a lot of money on the internet – even if it may be a good business model – it’s certainly not the only model.