Challis Hodge’s UXblog

In this breakthrough video the “Girls Of Miller” are protesting the freezing of their pensions. This is the first I’ve seen of a social media site being used as a virtual union picket line. The video is dedicated to Norman Adami, CEO (SAB) Miller Brewing Company from the Union Women of Miller Beer. It’s not very well done by the message is clear. You go girls…and two guys!?

In his post Social Networking Users ≠ Marketing Bait my good friend Matt MacQueen shares some thoughts on Google’s recent purchase of YouTube. He writes:

“Social networking sites are not the place for marketers to be intrusive,” [MacQueen] said. “These communities are there for people to network for the common good, not to be marketing bait. They are not loyal to the social networking site, they are loyal to their friends.”

The attractiveness of YouTube is not that it’s a great place for marketers to serve up ads. YouTube is the marketing tool. The medium is the message.

“The old mass marketing model, which is pushing the message out to a passive group of sheep,” doesn’t work for these sites, MacQueen said. Rather, the marketing, like the interaction among users of the site, needs to be “more one-on-one,” he said.

“It’s user-centered marketing. You have to look at a customer need or problem, and then have the brand give the customer what he wants.”

I think the message here is that my sermons from 10 years ago have finally come to fruition. :) Control has shifted from business to consumer and as such consumers are demanding products and services that meet their specific needs. This isn’t marketing. It’s the cost of entry to offer a product or service in todays markets.

Matt also commented on Helio’s service allowing users to post pictures directly to myspace from their phone.

MacQueen said Helio, a mobile phone company, has the right idea.

“They are offering an experience that is unique. You can publish the photos you take with your phone right on your MySpace page,” he said. “Helio figured out that the social currency on MySpace is through sharing media with other friends.”

MacQueen called this marketing as a service, not pushing a product.

I agree with Matt’s assessment that helio is offering a service though I think it’s a stretch to define it as marketing. In my view marketing the means to an end. The end being a sale or some other desired outcome that provides value to a business or entity. Helio is simply giving consumers what they want and need.

If Helio plays its cards well it may see the day when its most powerful marketing tool is the very customer it serves. If Google’s bet on YouTube is correct, YouTube it may well be the next paradigm in online marketing–anyone for Google VideoSense?