Most retail clients seem to be under the mistaken impression they’ve got emerging platforms under control as long as they have a Facebook page and a Twitter account. While utilising these two social platforms is a great start, I believe such an approach is dangerous for the following reasons.
Other platforms are gaining ground. Relying exclusively on these two platforms cuts you (and more significantly, your marketing budget) off from other opportunities like geo-targeting platforms (Gowalla, FourSquare) and Google+.
Different customers, different channels. Engaging customers wherever they are choosing to live out their virtual lives means being in many places at once. Not everyone is on Facebook or Twitter, there are plenty of customers excited to interact with their favourite brands who aren’t utilising these two platforms. While I believe it’s likely a customer on a squidoo lens is likely to be savvy Facebook users too, it’s not a guarantee. This is especially true in the silver surfer marketplace
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Facebook & Twitter Want ALL Your Marketing Efforts. I don’t mean to sound like a radical lefty, but if a brand invests heavily in these 2 platforms without spreading their bets it’s like giving all your content over to “the man.” This was recently exhibited in Facebook’s news feed update, by which brands are now seeing their updates features much less in fan’s feeds. Don’t forget (queue paranoid anarchist…) platforms own all the content a brand puts on them and the analytical data – they are effectively directing how any brand may utilise their platform and have the perogative to shift that direction without any warning.
What so you think? Is it okay to focus exclusively on FB & T?
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