Social Networking Goes Mainstream

As with most trends, on-line social networking for businesses started in the tech field. The tech side simply better understood the concept and how it could work for their brands.

But that was so yesterday.

More advertisers of everyday household goods are adding social media like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to the tactics they use to reach current and potential customers.

As familiarity with the social media becomes more mainstream, companies like Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods, PepsiCo and Procter & Gamble have added a new dimension to their marketing arsenal.

For example, a company called Land O’Frost has established an online community called Land O’Moms. It’s housed on a website where consumers can exchange recipes and parenting advice, download coupons, read articles from women’s magazines and communicate with popular mommy bloggers.

They also have presences on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

“It’s a whole revolution,” David Van Eekeren, president at Land O’Frost in Lansing, Ill., says of the social media. “We need to be part of it, obviously.”

This was quite a leap for Land O’Frost. Started by Van Eekeren’s grandfather, the company only decided two years ago to venture into television.

But with its “prime consumers, moms,” increasingly devoted to the social media, he adds, it was time for Land O’Frost to figure out how to join in.

In discussions with executives at Henson Consulting, a public relations agency, in Wheaton, Ill., “they told us we should be tying all we’re doing” to a single Web site, Van Eekeren says, where mothers “can come and spend time and we can engage them on a different level.”

The idea, he adds, is “to be a resource” to them and “not a sales pitch,” the better to “build loyalty from a product perspective.”

That “takes a little swallowing,” Van Eekeren acknowledges, recalling that when he looked at an early version of the Land O’Moms Web site “I said, ‘Where’s Land O’Frost?’ ”

Van Eekeren soon realized he didn’t want his company “to be a commercial splashed in someone’s face.”

Is Mobile Marketing Turning the Corner

Could it be that the promise of mobile marketing is catching up to the hype.

Every year a few trendy forecasters declare that advertising on mobile devices is poised to become the next big thing in marketing.

But every year, the results point to a belly flop. But maybe times are changing.

This year, with technology powerhouses like Apple and Google introducing whole new mobile devices and buying up ad firms specializing in the small screen, the forecasts may finally be right.

The sales pitch is a familiar one: The mobile phone offers advertisers all the benefits of traditional Internet ads, including the ability to track their effectiveness. It also lets marketers reach consumers on the go, on a gadget they clutch intimately.

However, the fact is, according to Juniper Research conducted worldwide, spending on mobile advertising amounted last year to only $1.4 billion. That’s less than one third of one percent of total ad revenue?

Some marketers remain wary about trying it, for fear of annoying consumers by intruding on their personal space. A technical toolbox poorly equipped to work with small screens has also hurt; after all, banner ads the size of thumbnails don’t make a big impression.

However, industry analysts say that now, with the introduction of Apple’s “More articles about iPad.” iPad tablet, an entirely new approach to mobile ads could be near.

This is because the iPad, a cross between a laptop and an “Recent and archival news about the iPhone.” iPhone, looks more like an iPhone from an ad perspective. It does not support Adobe Flash, the software used for much PC-based advertising. So, to make their ads available to iPad users, marketers may have to develop new kinds of ads, rather than simply adapting existing web ads.

“It’s a pretty exciting time for the market,” said Oliver Roxburgh, managing director of the British operations of YOC, a mobile ad agency. “It’s starting to grow up a little.”

Mr. Roxburgh’s enthusiasm has been buoyed by the efforts of Apple and Google and is shared by a growing chorus of industry experts.

Indeed, Windsor Holden, a principal analyst at Juniper Research, predicts that mobile ad spending worldwide will more than quadruple, to $6 billion, by 2014. And he does not shrink from the prediction.