Blogging and Product Placement
The other day when I was reading some blogs, it occurred to me that blogging and online journals are just one great big opportunity for product placement. Maybe that is all they are. Is social media, blogging included, one big piggy back? I got to thinking in fact about blogs and the whole idea of piggy backing and product placement marketing tactics in connection to all this. Blogging with affiliate links or Google Adsense or back-links to other sites is a form of product placement. Some people practice transparency by saying they will make money if you purchase through their affiliate links and others do not…it is a personal choice. Music video producers or the big film makers don’t mention it. Some big Youtubers have been asked to review products for payment and some likeiJustine created their brand by doing doing spoofs and reviews.
Discovering Social Media in a Launch Campaign
When I first came online to discover social media marketing, I fell quickly into a book launch campaign. I had no idea I was in until I purchased the book being launched. This happened to be a very detailed organized strategical campaign. All the conversations, the lived experiences and the content that was developed became part of the product and company branding. The line between marketing and real life was blurred. It was an experience that altered my life and opened up an entire new world of people, connections, and possibilities for me
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A Joint Venture is Formed
Some of the people I met decided to partner, incorporate and build something exceptional together. They all had different complimentary specialties. They were all working and learning in the same space. I knew a couple of them from the Facebook platform. I admired what they were doing and was intrigued to watch as things transformed. In all honesty, I was also very impressed that they were all GenYers. Social Media is great for many things and finding JVs or good partners is certainly one of them.
Marketing With Real Life Events
They have a developed a huge plan and are ardently executing it. As part of the plan, 8 of them moved across the US to set up house together for one year to create and launch this business called Social Spin. You can be sure, since they all have lots of social media marketing experience and are very aware of the benefits and need for transparency and authenticity that they shared/used every activity as a marketing tactic. Again I find myself participating in a launch where the lines of marketing and life are blurred. I am fascinated. I am certainly learning in the process. I have been thinking about how I could help them succeed. They piggy backed their launch on the Apple iPad launch.
Piggy Back Large Brands or Hot Topics
Apple is very smart with their brand and their marketing so much so that people freely create content for them as did the guys at Social Spin. They built their launch with a competition to win Apple iPad prizes. Perhaps one day they will attract Apple product placement for their reality show for entrepreneurs. A piggy back provides benefits for both the brand and the bloggers. When Bill Hartman or Dewane Mutunga, who I mentioned in last week’s blog Piggy Backing With iPAds, or the many others reviewing iPads plan their keywords well they probably even boosted their SEO.
Aggregation bloggers like AllTop have made themselves the one stop shop for online news of everything. They even make it possible for you to create your own “personal, online magazine rack”. If you study it, you will find many of the forward thinkers are connected to it by both consuming the lists and making up some of the lists as their brands have grown. It is back link galore. The line between life and business is blurred…
What do you think? are we all just part of one massive marketing campaign by the mere fact of being on-line either as a consumer or as a producer? I find it intriguing. In the meantime if you are an internet marketer keep your eyes open and always probe beneath the surface especially when you find someone who is successful at what they are doing. Learn from them whether it is a start-up group of GenYers like the Social Spin boys or Alltop or Apple. Tell me who’s back will you jump on?
Thanks again for dropping by.
Rebecca Happy~The Connector Gal
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