Time Magazine opened their Top 50 Web site list to public comment with the call to action: rank 'em.
You're looking at the poll's top 5.
How many - oh, savvy bloggers and feeders - do you actually use?
For me, it's zero.
Here's why I bring this up. I'm an online junkie working in a traditional - if evolving - ad agency. Today, there's still a pretty noticeable divide between the "interactive" group and, well, everybody else. And, as those TV and print veterans start to get excited about more and more integrated plans, there's one objection that rings through the halls: I've never heard of it; so, it must not have really caught on...
Growing pains.
Happily I have my own blog to grouse on. So, with no further ado - here are my top 5 picks for "mistakes" traditional marketers make in online planning:
- Apply "I've never heard of it" TV wisdom. In the world of prime time TV, marketshare is akin to WOMshare. Even if you include the cable channels with non-syndicated programming, there are what - maybe 50 choices for the 9 o'clock veg hour? Compare that to the online world - let's see, how many blogs can you surf? I think the current number is 60 million. And, even the really popular ones don't have the name recognition of Friends.
- Underestimate the size of niches: Yeah, it's ugly and your husband may never have heard of it, but little homespun LiveJournal has 13 million members. And, that's just the creators.
The one essential truth about the Web that makes it different from every medium you think you know is that it's cluster driven. You play with the sites your friends recommend. And, the destinations that are shorthand in your group are completely unknown two groups down the chain. There are very few universals (maybe weather.com, CNN, etc.). The way to reach people is in their niches.
- Misjudge ubiquity of community behavior: That may be better stated this way: We misjudge what "old" is. YES, you can reach 35+ women with high incomes online. Of course you can. They're reading and talking and shopping just like you are. The fastest growing community site on the Web, Facebookers? It's CafeMoms.
- Want to make it too easy or too hard: People want to interact. But, they don't all want to create and edit a video or make a mashup. There's a happy medium there where I do a little something and feel involved in your brand without doing your advertising for you...
- Think advertising is enough: If your interactive planning is done out of the media department, you're probably coming up short. All those surveys you see that say that the Web has as much or more eyeshare as TV that leave you thinking - why don't I notice as much advertising online??? Because it cannot end with advertising. Online marketing has to include destinations, community involvement, outreach, content, etc... a banner just ain't gonna do it.
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