Wake-UP: It’s The Time of Social Media

When we look at all the brands that exist our there, we realize that they have often opted to go for the good old traditional means of advertising. Mostly because they are afraid of taking the risk on something that is significantly new and most probably because they just don’t know what their return on investment will be like. I guess I would react the same… after all what we know about social media is not much.

Coming from someone who lives in a place that is still embracing social media, it makes a lot of sense. Coming from a marketer- kudos to those companies who have realized the importance of social media in branding. One of my all-time favorite ‘risk takers’ is Baby Einstein.

Relying on social media, this brand captured the over $14.2 billion dollar baby market, offering parents products that are created from a baby’s point-of-view, while at the same time promoting child-parent interaction, making their products loved by babies and trusted by mothers. With a $100 000 dollar investment, the creators of Baby Einstein created a presence and made significant impact, through its social media marketing, giving it the edge to get noticed by Walt Disney. Now, when we talk Baby Einstein, we talk of a $ 20 Million market worth brand that continues to grow stronger because of the direct interaction and first time experience it gave its customers. Can you tell me of other companies that have taken the high roll on social media?

Moving on… have you seen Toyota’s Prius latest campaign to promote its iPhone application? Oh my god. Pure and utter genius! Take a look and tell me what you think?  These people get it. They know that social media is all about the product and the buzz.

The point is that we need to embrace this new marketing paradigm, and start building our marketing strategies accordingly to be able to provide more innovative adaptations of consumer related products and services. Social media is an opportunity that cannot and should not be ignored. Only the foolish have not come to terms with this realization yet.