(via wildcat2030)
By all means, create branded content, and shoot for the moon when it comes to earned media. But in all cases know that your best-case scenario is to be a part of the social stream. Throw a rock in a raging river and watch how quickly those ripples are subsumed by the greater powers of the current: that’s what you’re up against.
The point of marketing in this environment is to create the types of jetsam and driftwood that our users can grab on to; find purchase on; point-to in passing … and move on. Don’t worry, you get credit along the way. It builds up. Eventually you’ll have built an indomitable ledge of stone. This is branding.
It seems that while the analogy between brands and APIs has got incredibly long legs, we are still looking at it from the wrong perspective: the brand perspective.
What if, instead of focussing on what the API allows the user to Pull we start focussing on what the API allows the user to PUSH, meaning allowing the user to ingest a controlled and owned selection of brand-relevant personal data into the brand API such as user context, passions, interests and behaviours?
What if I could feed for example my location data to the API of my mobile network operator (plugging in my mobile gps, Foursquare or Sonar data) and get the most customised international plan based on my travel habits?
And what if consumers could ‘sell’ this personal data to brands? Consumers used to pay brands for products. We are now heading towards a future where digital data abundance means brands are going to pay consumers for their personal data. Users get customised offerings while remaining in control of their personal data, brands increase their relevance by investing on live audience intelligence rather than push strategies.
