IN THE MODE.

Big Picture Advertising has a take on the challenge for the coming year from a WSJ article. Figuring out how to make social networking advertising more effective.

I think that many brands are somewhat missing the point with social networks. At the moment these networks are destinations, and so the ‘traditional’ internet advertising models of PPC and display take prevalence with most thinking. But this will change relatively rapidly. Social networks (as with life) will become filters, or lenses for our interaction with other people, content and brands, amongst other things. And no one wants a dirty great ad in the middle of their conversation with friends or colleagues.

I like the word lens rather than filter, because it is more descriptive – a lens can magnify and clarify certain aspects of things, and allow other aspects to fade into blurry generalism, much like our social interactions with other people do. So just maybe social networks aren’t destinations for advertising either. But the people within them might be. And that will bring a whole new set of challenges for media and communications planners.

Quite what form that ‘advertising’ will take is a challenge in itself. My bet is that it will be more about an exchange of value between brand and individual than a distinct message as such. Both individual and their broader group will become a part of an ongoing narrative primarily driven by them, not the brand.

I expect to see online social interactions become much more of a gradated filter to all our online activity over the next few years – one which we can dial up or down dependent on our context. And context is shortly going to be everything (and more on that soon). If I’m doing research I might want an ‘unbiased’ view from a vanilla Google. But when searching for a plumber, for example, I want my friends to have a great influence on what I find. I trust them. And I would tend towards trusting who they trust.

And therein lies the opportunity for brands.