From: Business Insider
Selfies And Homemade Videos Are Changing Marketing
Wherever you turn, pictures and videos taken by both ordinary people and celebrities are being used to change the face of marketing. The marketers that understand how to capitalize on these personal creations are going to jump ahead of their competitors that don’t.
Hijacked Media
Not all the pictures and videos, however, are being used to positively promote a company’s products. Videos of Comcast customers, Aaron Spain and Tim Davis, documenting poor customer service have gone viral on YouTube, with over 1.6 million and 760,000 views respectively as of this writing.
This has gotten the news media excited, which has featured their stories on their news programs all over the English-speaking world. Companies that ignore these hijacked media examples are likely to suffer serious consequences, such as lost business and profits. Those that listen and learn can use them to build stronger, more profitable relationships with their customers.
Searching For Earned Media
Brand marketers are hunting for selfies and hauling videos that show their brands in a positive light, advertisers are incorporating them into their ads to communicate positive benefits of their products, and market researchers are using them to research how their products are being used in the marketplace. Customer service departments are using them them to find out and fix what is wrong to develop better relationships with their customers and earn their trust.
A Picture Is Worth 1,000 Words
Pictures and videos contain an enormous amount of information that would be impossible to capture in words alone. The fact that anyone that has a smart phone can record good-quality video and photos means that there is a lot of valuable information being captured by the crowd. Marketers that build a competent marketing information system can tap into social media to find and use this information to their advantage.
How Can Selfies And Videos Help Your Marketing?
The fundamental building blocks of marketing provide a useful structure to organize the answers to this question. Pictures and videos can
- Marketing Information System. Provide feedback on how well your products are performing in the marketplace. They can also show you new uses of your products that you have not even thought about.
- Branding. Make visual brand impressions that personalize the brand by showing how real people interact with it. Through social media sharing and viral pyramids, the number of brand impressions can go up exponentially.
- Product. Show potential buyers how existing buyers are using and enjoying your products. Some users can even explain, more clearly, how to use your products than you can.
- Price. Better communicate the value of your products and help you to answer any price objections.
- Distribution. Show prospective buyers where they can find, buy, and use your products, and how to order your products more conveniently on mobile and social media platforms.
- Promotion. Visually communicate the benefits of your products in compelling ways. Buyers are more likely to trust what fellow customers are saying about your products than what you say.
The above list provides only some of the ways selfies and videos are changing the face of marketing. There is a lot of experimentation that is going on right now. If you keep track of the successful implementations in Business Insider and various marketing publications, you are likely to get some really good ideas that you can implement on a shoestring budget.
