As we extend our search for a new recruit, we came across a curious crossroad. We needed to broaden our search further afield than our immediate social network and started to consider paid advertising through social networks.

With 2.5 billion people on the internet, we have become utterly dependent on social networking sites to organise what would no doubt otherwise be some form of online pseudo organised chaos. It has become the holy grail of information as well as our primary communication tool.

The significance of business online should no longer be a doubt. Just today we hear of HMV’s call to the administrators. They moved too slow in a digital world that calls for immediate action from businesses lest they be left by the wayside.

This fast paced evolution of modern business requests pioneers and adventurers of all of us as there is no room left for the antiquated or archaic. The landscape is forever changing and the successful businesses are those that have embraced online strategies as soon as they are available and those early adopters of bleeding edge technology and process are often those that yield the rewards. If you miss the tech tidal wave, it’s a damn hard swim trying to catch it up again and many don’t survive the struggle.

Up to now, online advertisement has simply digitised our standard way of real life print advertising, from the uses of billboards to mass mail outs. Online advertising has equated to web banners, search engine advertising and email marketing. This is a carbon copy mechanism, converting print to digital without any real thought to it. The main objective is to appeal to a mass audience, choosing to adopt a carpet bombing approach where the aim is to get a decent enough response rate. This method is one directional, the communication is expected from the user only.

Let’s take web banners as an example. These are placed on third party websites or blogs with large traffic as this immediately leads to an assumption that large traffic equals big crowds, which then lead to a higher response rate. Aside from appealing to a broad demographic, it doesn’t actually lend itself to any intelligent campaign management.

Is social media advertising the future?

With the saturation of social media networks, users have become almost dependant on these sites. Combine this with our mobility and the dominance of smart phones and mobile apps, it’s no longer a case of capturing a large audience as the audience is simply there. Now we need to employ intelligence to our reach, using behaviour, analytics and science to gain an understanding of key demographics to ensure we attract and focus on the right people and giving them what they didn’t know they were looking for!

Being first to the scene of any exciting news is enough of a scoop for your regular Facebook user to have them mashing keys in a frenzied rush to be the first kid on the block with breaking news to bare. This key component of viral news distribution has become the ultimate scoop now and this is represented by many dramatic news stories that are no longer shot on studio standard video cameras, but by mobile phones and iPods instead.

We now share a hunger for this information and it’s up to the advertiser to take advantage of this by using social media mechanisms to capture this attention. We are also now part of the news. Modern tools allow us to comment, to share, to express opinion and to subsequently pass on. If we get it right, the users do most of the work for us!

We are made and broken by the strength of our online reputations now. Yes, we can sing, shout and wax lyrical about our elevation to supreme status, but get it wrong and your reputation will collapse faster than a house of cards. People will spread negativity and left unchecked, your facebook company page, now dominated by 1000’s of people, can be host and master to the distribution of much negativity.

Both traditional and modern methods for advertising work great in getting your message across, with traditional online advertising using a broadcasting approach, and social media marketing employing (or hoping for) a viral spread of information. Although that in itself is another misnomer as viral campaigns cannot be created, they are a subject or by-product of a successful campaign.

Sending group emails out to your network asking random audiences to like your Facebook page or to follow your Twitter account can often come across as nothing other than tragic. A fake group of disinterested followers is worse than a minority group of fans.

In terms of effectiveness and appeal to larger audiences, using social media marketing has become a science allowing clients to measure ROI’s. But it is always down to how appealing and effective the material are to the user. We are clued up and intelligent about our power as consumers now. What value does this give me? Is there a personal benefit to me? Why should I pay for this version when there is a free alternative?