18 Aug How the Semantic Web Will Change Social Media Marketing Part 2: Social Networks & Your Burnt Cookies
In my last article on the semantic web, I gave an overview of what many leaders in the internet programming and development field assert the semantic web to be, and I included a bit about how these developments would affect the way all of us interact with the net.
This post, and those to follow, will focus on more specific ways in which a semantic web could change the social media landscape as we know it. Like I said before, I’m no psychic (sad but true), so my assertions are purely educated conjecture based on research and developments that I’ve already seen unfold.
(**NOTE: Before we begin, I’d like to thank Chase Farmer for giving me a programmer’s perspective of the semantic web and providing me with some great examples. In the spirit of semantics, I will tag Chase as “super-smart,” “php master,” and “music aficionado.”)
The Burnt Cookies Backstory
Remember those awful cookies from my last post that burnt down your small business when hypothetically you spent too much time on Google?
They’re back, the jerks. This time in HTTP form.
It began like this: once upon a time, in a land far far away, the guys behind online ads realized that they could more efficiently market to their users (and, therefore, garner more revenue), if they began storing little packets of text within users’ browsers each time they visited a particular website or used particular keyphrases in searches. These packets were dubbed “cookies.” Cookies can do a lot of really neat things from a marketer’s perspective. Each one is unique (like snowflakes!), meaning that each user is uniquely tagged, and when this tagged user arrives at sites that are enabled to read the cookies, his or her unique cookie is recognized by the browser/server. In this way, cookies can ostensibly follow an IP address on many sites around the internet, seeing which kinds of sites a user frequents, what kinds of search queries they enter, and what kinds of products they purchase.
But cookies have their downfalls too. They are often eaten (“cleared”), and if not, they’ll eventually go stale (i.e. “expire”). Therefore, one individual IP can only be tracked and marketed to for a certain amount of time before the cookies have to start all over. Not to mention the fact that multiple people may be using one computer, and multiple computers may even be using the same IP, meaning that a person with a pretty lackluster enthusiasm for sports such as myself could be lambasted with banner ads for NFL-related merchandise because her (my) younger brother spent three hours updating his fantasy football league on espn.com.
Basically, your cookies are so burnt out.
Why Facebook > Google
With the rise of social networks came the rise of log-ins. To Facebook, I’m not just a random IP address, I’m Megan Hannay of Durham who graduated from UNC in ’09 and has over 300 tagged pictures and who “likes” Wilco and 100 Years of Solitude. And I can’t navigate Facebook without identifying myself as such.
(NOTE #2: I realize that there are a lot of privacy issues with social networks and marketers, so much so that one of my next posts is going to be all about that very topic! So if it seems like I’m ignoring the issue of privacy here, it’s just because I’m going to cover it more in depth soon.)
Where did you first hear that Michael Jackson died? That Proposition 8 was overturned? Where did you get most of your updates on the BP oil spill? The likelihood that you heard about at least one of these developments via a social networking site is pretty high. Some bloggers, such as Steve Rubel, are already jumping on ‘team Facebook’ as the next big news source.
And Rubel isn’t alone. In February, ReadWriteWeb made the same argument, citing Facebook’s blog post that encouraged users to “like” news sources from their profiles as an example of the company’s efforts to become our one and only source of…well…everything that’s fit to click-through to.
Even with customized searches, no search engine could match Facebook’s knowledge of its unique users. Including my friends, my photos & videos, my “likes,” and my personal info, Facebook has 822 tags on me – just me! And this doesn’t take into account the stats on the links I share or the friends I communicate with the most (and their “likes,” which, one could argue, are probably akin to my “likes” too). So it makes sense that the ads and social shares that are coming my way via Facebook are more likely to apply to me, mean something to me, or be valued by me, since they all come from “likes,” friends, and interests that I’ve explicitly and purposefully tagged as pertaining to me.
Plus, with the rumors that tonight’s Facebook announcement may concern the long-awaited release of a geo-location tool, it seems that this network is going to know even more about me and my friends.
What This Means for Marketers
Now, more than ever, brands are able to narrow down their target audiences. The days of “we’re looking for 15 – 30 year old males who enjoy watching professional basketball” will soon be gone. If I wanted to, I could create a Facebook ad for 23 – 24-year-old engaged women who attended college, like cupcakes and white wine, who work for Paramount, and who are not already fans of The Food Network, but whose friends are fans of the Travel Channel. I have no idea what you would sell them (besides cup-sized wedding cakes with movie star prints on them that don’t taste very good, but can be sent to friends and family all over the world), and that example was clearly an extreme, but the point is that the semantic nature of social networks will allow for previously unimaginable targeting to the perfect demographic.
But with great targeting power comes great targeting responsibility. In other words, if you’re going to presume to talk to such a select group of individuals, you’d better know exactly how to grab their attention. Once the semantic web is alive and kicking, it’s not only consumers who will be semantically tagable, it’s also campaigns, themes, memes, brands, fans, even Dan’s and comic sans.
If social networks like Facebook truly are the future of all conversations and sharing of all kinds, then brands need to ensure that they’re developing content that isn’t going to get lost in the shuffle. When Old Spice targeted celebrities, they didn’t go after Ashton or Kim or either of the Justin’s; they made videos for Kevin Rose and Alyssa Milano – a techie and a philanthropic actress – to get the ball rolling. The team behind this campaign knew exactly to whom they needed to reach out to really start some conversations around their brand.
In an age of semantic tagging, only relevant and interesting content will survive, so remember, friends, to be a tough cookie :).
In my next post I’ll outline more specific examples of semantic-web related social media promotions, apps, and sites.
