Why Brands Will Need To Focus On Sponsoring Content

Thursday, 05. 7. 2009  –  Category: Enversa Companies

As social media continues changing the world we live in and how we interact with other people, it will also have increasingly dramatic effects on the ways that brands market their products and services. Traditional advertising – such as television, radio and print commercials – is going to matter less and less in this new, more interactive world. More and more, consumers are going to demand and be attracted to brands that grab their attention in innovative and creative ways through various forms of content.

Due to the consumer’s fragmentation of time spent in media consumption, it is becoming more essential than ever before for brands to focus on sponsoring exciting and relevant content that increases their brand value. While there are truly limitless possibilities to do this, the catch is coming up with ways of integrating brand identification and loyalty into everyday social media mediums. Companies that can deftly make social media content work for their products and services are going to succeed far more often than companies that fall behind in this type of marketing.

Simply slapping together a website and churning out meaningless content will not work in today’s world. Web users are becoming savvier by the day, and they can spot a phony marketing attempt from miles away. It’s no longer enough to just have a presence on the Internet; companies today need to incorporate their brands seamlessly within well written and well developed content across all sorts of different social media platforms. Of key importance is making the brand fit naturally within whatever type of social media that is being used.

Some brands lend themselves more easily to marketing within a social media setting. Electronic and technological items, for instance, fit more organically within this kind of structure. However, even brands that do not necessarily fit in to an online world can and should be marketed effectively by using different types of community building techniques, online tools and well-written and developed types of content.

Rather than sponsoring a television show, sporting event or an athlete, brands should consider looking at online content for sponsorship. Getting in on the ground floor with a phenomenon that starts sweeping the Internet can ensure a great deal of success to any kind of brand. Imagine if Twitter had been heralded by a soft drink company early in its creation, or if MySpace had been embraced by a shoe manufacturer early in its inception. The rapid rise of both of those forms of social media would have propelled their respective brands into the stratosphere.

Brands can work their way into different kinds of social media simply by having a presence within them. Smart companies are working on creating a meaningful and interactive presence within existing sites such as Facebook and Twitter. As trends change, emerge and mutate, these same companies should be prepared to change with them. Their brand marketing needs to be flexible enough to withstand the changes inherent to the ever changing world of Web 2.0.

However, making this leap of faith and embracing new technologies and ways of reaching consumers is often difficult for a brand.  This requires a marketing/promotion department willing to take a risk and devote budget to an untested media method.  Although it’s untried, the payoffs often outweigh the risk.

Marc Pickren is the President of Enversa- a performance-based marketing agency.

Tags: advertisers, article, branding, websites