The Pit - IMI Trust

You are seeing the world of business revolutionise right before your eyes!

Business is not about building databases anymore, it is now about building networks or communities. It is taking what is so powerful offline and utilising the technology available to create networks online.

It is no longer about selling your customers, it is about educating them and providing them with a platform to contribute to your business.. The more you educate and inform, the more loyalty you attract. It is about involving them in the community which you are developing, and allowing them to be active within it.

Advertising platforms allow marketers to target their customers, in ways which 10 years ago… were not even thought of. The way consumers think is now in terms of ‘keywords’. Companies like Google, take an approach to advertising which I have never seen before. That is… the better you are at targeting your customer, and the better you are at relating your text to your customers desires… the cheaper your advertising rates.

For business, sites like LinkedIn have gone from strength to strength. Facebook is now evolving at an amazing rate and astonished the business world when Microsoft invested US$240 into the company for a minor stake. This investment valued the company at US$15 Billion.

Google is on the verge of cracking $700 a share, and it’s aquisition of Youtube has proved wise, with it now being the platform of expression for the new generation. Politics has seen a rapid change, with a strong focus on capturing Youtube’s audience to promote their message.

Now we are seeing Australian politicians John Howard and Kevin Rudd go toe to toe, utilising Youtube and Myspace as their platform.

Promoting your business is now more complex and strategic than ever. Those companies that don’t advance with the changes, will be left behind by the companies that adopt the Web 2.0 and Social Networking models.

How are you utilising Web 2.0 and Social Networking in the growth of your business?

The old tradition of political marketing was all about direct media advertising, with carefully designed ad placement and a whole lot of kissing babies. TV, Radio, and Newspaper photo ops. Media organisations love nothing more than an election year for marketing budgets to open up.

Whilst this platform is still very relevant, there is an entirely new landscape that has opened up and both parties are feeling their way through new media.

The new platforms being adopted are Social Networking sites, Wiki’s, Online Video and Blogs. The main sites the politicians are looking to utilise are Myspace (which now has it’s own political section), YouTube, and Wikipedia.

This new media offer more power and opportunity then ever before to sell their promises… but on the flipside it makes the public acutely aware of the potential pitfalls.

TV, Radio and Newspaper have all the same features. They are expensive, can only provide short messages, and only provide generic messages.

New media is different. Inexpensive, gets instant media coverage, can provide long or short messages, can target specific groups, they can provide interaction with voters and it allows the parties to respond to comments from their opponents.

This is Political Marketing the Web 2.0 way. In the US, YouTube created national Online debates, where Youtube users ask the questions, and viewers can watch the debates live. Australia is looking to follow this lead.

It is now common in the US for candidates to spend more time with influential bloggers, than with journalists. If you look at the websites of Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama, the have embraced the Web 2.0 medium completely. The have blogs, online videos, user profiles and offers to ability for supporters to unite and communicate their message.

Whilst elections can be won this way, they can also be very quickly lost. Just ask John Edwards. The Democrat politician was doing what he called “The Poverty Tour.” His entire campaign was about helping people out of poverty and getting back to basics.
His campaign was ruined when footage of him appeared on YouTube, getting a US$400 haircut. The YouTube footage, made its way to all the blogs, other video sites and then into the mainstream media. His popularity has never been the same since.

It will be interesting to see how John Howard, Kevin Rudd and fringe parties like the Greens use this new media when the election date is announced.

This blogging thing seems relatively easy.  Every once in a while you post some commentary about what you want, the news of the day, some story you want to re-tell or just shoot the breeze about something banal. 

However, many companies that are adopting blogging are struggling to post.  They are getting writer’s block.  Is the subject worthy of commentary? Will readers laugh at my attempts at communicating?  Is there even anyone out there?

‘Blogophobia’ seems so prevalent that major corporates are paying bloggers thousands of dollars a month to write 3 or 4 posts.  To the average blogger that seems like a dream.  To a company, that seems scary that the going rate for a blogger is so high.  Well, there is an alternative…

PayPerPost is a start-up based in the US that is connecting writers with companies that need content.  Bloggers can get paid and companies can pay for content.  Blogger purists are turning there nose up at the idea that you can outsource such a personal form of communication.

For us, this is further evidence that you are able to outsource even the most minor of functions to free up time for yourself and the people at your company.  Many companies in Australia are still doing accounting, archiving, book-keeping, word-processing and other support functions all in-house. 

Companies choose not outsource these functions because they like maintaining control, however, by outsourcing these functions you can give each action a unit price.  A cost-per-word, the price per pdf, the record keeping costs all have unit value.  If you know that it costs $20 to process a document and you can be certain what you need to do to make the process profitable. 

And everyone likes profit…even bloggers.  Well most of them, anyway