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Social Media & the Three-Legged Elephant
by Jake Aull
Social media is as much a passing fad as was the automobile a
century ago. A June 2011 report from the Pew Research Center
reveals that 47 percent of American adults say they use a social
networking site, almost double the usage of just three years ago.
And marketers are responding. By 2015, social media is expected
to represent 18 percent of company marketing budgets (CMO
Survey, February 2011). So why this growing trend, and how can
businesses use it to their advantage?
In October 2004 as the World Wide Web was ripe with the
transition from Web 1.0 to social media, Wired magazine editor
Chris Anderson wrote about “The Long Tail,” and later published
a book by the same name. In her 2009 book, “Google Speaks”
Janet Lowe traced long-tail marketing to the original Sears
catalog of the 1800s. Today, understanding the long-tail concept is
critical to digital content strategy - both for social media and for
search marketing.
The long tail represents the extended downward curve along the
X-axis of a typical revenue cycle chart. In traditional marketing,
long-tail sales were not financially viable in economies of scale,
because they represented smaller audiences dipping below brick-and-mortar costs.
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I like to explain the long tail with the following analogy:
Somewhere in the world is a collector of three-legged elephant
statues. Twenty years ago no store or manufacturer could have
thrived selling such products; how could they possibly have found,
attracted and served such customers economically? Yet today,
the three-legged elephant collector is online and in social media,
searching for suppliers and similar collectors for discussion.
The long tail is an important term, with similar meaning, in search
engine optimization (SEO). In search marketing, “head” keywords
are broader, common terms. As a digital marketing consultant, I
tell companies that are competing for top search engine results
with head keywords such as “sculpture” would be challenging,
with poor return on investment. It’s more manageable to achieve
top organic rankings for a long-tail keyword such as “three-legged
elephant.” In pay-per-click advertising, the cost for such
a keyword would also be less. And a full, long-tail digital content
strategy incorporates both social media and search for optimal
results.
The deepening power of Web 1.0, 2.0 and beyond is the ability
to cater to what Anderson terms “infinite niche.” Whether in
small e-commerce sites or large sites like eBay that can also
deliver niche, that three-legged elephant suddenly has profit
potential. And not only is our statue collector online, searching
and chatting, but her Internet cookies and social networking
software (SNS) data are available to digital advertising programs
and customer resource management (CRM) systems. The savvy
digital marketer just has to find the conversations and, as a
sincere, fellow enthusiast, discuss, earn trust, and represent a
product without imposing.
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Copyright © 2011 J. Mack Robinson College of Business/Georgia State University
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