I was lurking through the blogosphere the other day and I stumbled upon an interesting post about “radvertising,” which is a term I would like to discuss in my own blog. Radvertising is basically any advertisement that is entertaining, witty, is tied to the product, and will be spread throughout the internet by consumers.
http://startupblog.wordpress.com/2009/03/24/radvertising-james-boag/
If an advertising creative can make an ad that is so fantastic that it creates a buzz online, then the product that is tied to it should, in a way, “sell itself.”
This, to me, is the goal of advertising, and the best contribution that the internet has made to advertising.
However, after the discussion in class about social media and how marketing is changing I feel that most marketers have no idea how to use these technologies to the best of their advantage.
So far the marketing game plan has been simple; if it is a social media, use it. Twitter, sure. Facebook, ok. If enough people use it that it is relevant, then you should make your company an account and blast out tweets into cyberspace.
Wrong.
What marketers should do is focus their efforts to best segment and target the audiences. If your consumers aren’t the type of people that use Twitter, or if Twitter will just be a way for you to show your account exec. that you are using social media then you probably shouldn’t.
Take for example the makers of the Snuggie or the Jitterbug cell phone. Twitter is not the best idea for these companies. There is no way that the people at Snuggie have enough information to share on a Twitter page, and the Jitterbug is not exactly targeting the young people that Tweet all day.
Simply put, online marketing and advertising has gotten out of control.
As a future advertising exec. I hope to not make these pitfalls, and I have been seriously considering how to construct an online marketing plan for the MSE Program, which is what I was assigned to. I am really excited about this undertaking, and I feel that it will be challenging since we are essentially marketing a part of UF. A degree.
I am not sure if we will end up finding a use for a Twitter page, but I know that we have our work cut out for us.
In the end, to tweet or not to tweet. That is the online marketer’s question. 
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I agree with this point. I feel you run the risk to having a cyber “sign blight” and the products getting lost. To market properly and pinpointing your target consumer your advertising dollars are much more effective.