Back to blogging
After shelving my blogging efforts in the aftermath of a difficult MA thesis I find myself returning to the fold. I plan on building on my thesis work by continuing to explore digital marketing, media, business and culture. I’d also love to get some interesting discussion going too.
Researching online communities, viral spread and e-fluentials was rewarding but tricky. Armed with a background in psychology and statistics, a taste for the digital zeitgeist and a fascination for social media and marketing I attempted to pin down viral phenomena in all its glory.
During the course of the study I blogged about my investigations as a sort of record-cum-livejournal detailing the many-headed beast of a problem that viral research presented.
Investigating virals was fascinating but tricky. Virals can be almost anything: Short gimmicky movies or deeply involving multi-channel media extravaganzas. Virals are at once a form of old skool marketing comms whilst at the same time being radically different in design and spirit. More than just a one-way communication, virals represent a dialogue not just between brand and consumer but between individuals and their social circles. A good viral has to be attention grabbing, but it also has to be socialised in such a way that friends will pass it on to one another: Marketing comms as social glue and water cooler moment.
New innovation
The desire to document and engage in dialogue about new media largely stems from the surprising changes I’ve witnessed since finishing my thesis in late 2006. At the time digital marketing was continuing to revolutionise consumer-brand relationships and user generated content was king. The times they were a-changing. Digital marketing was instrumental in driving and responding to those changes. But it wasn’t until recently that I truly appreciated what those initial shifts would herald.
Firstly, the advent of the iphone seemed to rewrite a whole chunk of the marketing bible. Secondly, the BK facebook whopper app showed the full capabilities of the social networking sites as a comms channels that could rival other online channels and potentially entirely out-perform offline channels when it came to ROI and measurability. And thirdly, skittles, one of the biggest brands in B2C marketing, turned its entire N. American site into a UGC-fest.
I’ll go into why those three developments were so remarkable to me in later blog posts. For now, suffice it to say, I feel as excited today about digital as I did when I first started researching digital and new media in 2005.
As well as helping me get my thoughts down in a concise and well-researched way I’m also hoping that the blog can act as a resource of sorts for those a little less digitally-minded than the rest of us. During my consultancy work I often come across business professionals who are interested in new media but are still a little unsure of how it all fits together: The Basics part of the blog will be dedicated to explaining in simple business terms what digital marketing and new media is all about.
(First posted June 27, 2009 on viralmojo.net)
Researching online communities, viral spread and e-fluentials was rewarding but tricky. Armed with a background in psychology and statistics, a taste for the digital zeitgeist and a fascination for social media and marketing I attempted to pin down viral phenomena in all its glory.
During the course of the study I blogged about my investigations as a sort of record-cum-livejournal detailing the many-headed beast of a problem that viral research presented.
Investigating virals was fascinating but tricky. Virals can be almost anything: Short gimmicky movies or deeply involving multi-channel media extravaganzas. Virals are at once a form of old skool marketing comms whilst at the same time being radically different in design and spirit. More than just a one-way communication, virals represent a dialogue not just between brand and consumer but between individuals and their social circles. A good viral has to be attention grabbing, but it also has to be socialised in such a way that friends will pass it on to one another: Marketing comms as social glue and water cooler moment.
New innovation
The desire to document and engage in dialogue about new media largely stems from the surprising changes I’ve witnessed since finishing my thesis in late 2006. At the time digital marketing was continuing to revolutionise consumer-brand relationships and user generated content was king. The times they were a-changing. Digital marketing was instrumental in driving and responding to those changes. But it wasn’t until recently that I truly appreciated what those initial shifts would herald.
Firstly, the advent of the iphone seemed to rewrite a whole chunk of the marketing bible. Secondly, the BK facebook whopper app showed the full capabilities of the social networking sites as a comms channels that could rival other online channels and potentially entirely out-perform offline channels when it came to ROI and measurability. And thirdly, skittles, one of the biggest brands in B2C marketing, turned its entire N. American site into a UGC-fest.
I’ll go into why those three developments were so remarkable to me in later blog posts. For now, suffice it to say, I feel as excited today about digital as I did when I first started researching digital and new media in 2005.
As well as helping me get my thoughts down in a concise and well-researched way I’m also hoping that the blog can act as a resource of sorts for those a little less digitally-minded than the rest of us. During my consultancy work I often come across business professionals who are interested in new media but are still a little unsure of how it all fits together: The Basics part of the blog will be dedicated to explaining in simple business terms what digital marketing and new media is all about.
(First posted June 27, 2009 on viralmojo.net)
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