it's Josip not joseph

There’s no denying we’re in a time of great disruption. Our ways of life are changing. Newfound trends are emerging. All while many of us are trying to grasp what’s happening. And it’s something of which in large part is directly the effect of advanced technologies.

What’s great about this is that there is significant room for innovation. Everything we’ve ever known as traditional is becoming adapted, transformed and somehow altered to suit the times. Equally, new and non-traditional mediums are materializing at unprecedented rates. Amidst the real world we’ve always known, and the online world we’ve created over the last two decades, comes the rapidly growing and expanding social and mobile worlds.

From my own personal perspective, classifying things as such supplements the argument. To me, everything is in essence part of one real world. The perceived distinctions and differences will all undoubtedly become a part of real life as time wears on. Rather than simply being factors of the internet, Facebook, BlackBerry’s and the such.

The truly fascinating aspect here is the elements being forged as a result of our growing interconnectivity. Social media and mobile technology are amongst the greatest catalysts towards innovation that we’ve ever seen. However, disappointingly, there is an extreme hesitation to what could be possible and adopted.

I understand that the dynamics of business would like to have greater value returned than that exerted. The beloved ROI. So, yes, social media and mobile technology are difficult to measure on a return-on-investment basis. But in that same breathe, many are pursuing social media and mobile marketing methodologies. It’s at this point when I can’t help but wonder what is possible and what hasn’t been done or tried compared to what we all observe.

In any case, we are beginning to see and we will increasingly see the raise of something new, exciting and impacting. Enter, User Marketing. This is my take on innovation.

In an environment where the interaction and relationship between the people, the consumer, the individual has never been closer to the brand, the product and the company than ever before, the User will become the proponent to your either marketing scheme.

Not to be mistaken for a user of the product itself, User Marketing will come to represent the very users of social media and mobile technology. And I’m not referring to paid tweeters, bloggers, influencers and anything of that nature. Rather, and most importantly, the premise behind User Marketing will in fact be the average consumer, the individual, the everyday user of social media and mobile technology will be the main ingredients within this mix.

Groupon’s threshold couponing, location based service’s like shopkick and foursquare and Facebook strategies that entice “likes” in return for an offer are all examples of the path we are taking to User Marketing. But, what I’m waiting for and wanting to see is something beyond that.

The reality is that we still spend excessive amounts of time shopping at in-store retail locations. The reality is also the fact that in-store retail has yet too be optimized for the User, as shopkick and foursquare themselves are still taking on a company-centric approached as opposed to an user-centric one.

Not only are the proponents behind User Marketing user-centric, it’s really all about the user. It’s not about spending time within a location, or checking into that location, or having you do some kind of loyalty variation. It’s about the user receiving immediate and tangible offers. And in-return for receiving that offer, the User must be willing to spread the word to other users, by venture of using social and mobile means.

With all that being said, there are three underlying dynamics to User Marketing. It involves the socialization and technological expansion of the in-store retail space, the message element and the user element.

In-store socialization and technological expansion: The in-store retail space is a socially and technologically untouched area, in relative terms. Not only is there plenty of room for growth in this segment, it seems to be an inevitable occurrence. Live social capabilities that both allow you to update and watch updates is an avenue more than worth exploring. It’s all about the dialogue amongst the consumers. Along with this, there is a series of other social and technological possibilities that could be put into play.
The message element: With the unprecedented growth of smart phones and tablets, communication has become an increasingly imperative and diverse tool for everyone. As a result of these transpirings, we all have the capability to reach an growing audience of colleagues, friends, family and anyone else. User Marketing will dictate that communication channels will be measured differently. The offer value for a text or BBM message will be weighed differently compared to a tweet or a Facebook share tagged to the brand. Not to mention the many variations that exist within this.
The user element: Unfortunately, as users we all don’t carry the same network. But like anything else, size does not equate to value. User Marketing is not looking for the significant influencers to sell for them. Rather, it looks for the average consumer to connect with their average network. There are more than a few variables to these equations however they will not discriminate in a manner where users are out of reach for the offer. The idea here is to provide a tangible offering that is valued accordingly for everybody.

What’s great here is that User Marketing adds greater value to many elements that already exist with in the in-store retail space. What’s also great is that the current in-store retail space doesn’t represent the times. Not only would User Marketing change the way you market and advertise for better business, it’s absolutely a fantastic proposition for all the shoppers out there. Who wouldn’t like a pair of shoes for half price just because they sent a tweet or text. How about some dollars off some cool gadgets for a Facebook update. With prices hardly coming down, hard times remaining, social media expanding and mobile technology increasing, User Marketing could be that great innovation in these growing disruptive times.

(Photo credit)

I always and still wonder how digital we will be once we become parents. As parents, our lives will undoubtedly change as we alter and shift our priorities. But what does this mean for our digital nature? After all, Generation Y is a generation that has grown up and continues to grow digitally inclined. Will we carry on and evolve in our digital nature, creating families immersed in the digital world? Or will our smart phone and social media ways regress to be figments of our young adulthood?

Still in mainstream infancy, the social and mobile worlds have yet to be fully realized. With quick swings occurring and segment maturation being an unrecognizable reality at this moment, predicting what can happen next year, in 3 years, 5 years and in 10 is, frankly, impossible.

There has already been some debate over this last summer regarding the social media sharing characteristic of Gen-Y. But even then, I don’t see a future of sharing but rather one of growing connectivity. Trust me, there’s a significant difference between sharing and connecting.

Equally, I’ve brought up the idea that Gen-Y will unknowingly introduce to the world a series of Truman Show-esque children. Complete childhood’s will be recorded online for the world to see. And with friends, family and our long lost colleagues on Facebook, I’ve begun to see a strong influx of young mothers absolutely sharing everything about their young children. Whether this is positive, negative or meaningless remains to be seen. But it’s happening in a large series of circumstances where young Gen-Y mothers have had children. At least, in my experience of course.

All that being said, it’s common knowledge to know that mothers are affluent members of blog communities. Both as bloggers and readers. Commonly and most notably known as mommy bloggers. However, what is new and truly interesting is the findings behind how youth Gen-Y moms are communicating.

In pure Gen-Y fashion, these young mothers lead the way in phone, text and Facebook as methods of communicating with immediate family members. As a recent article via eMarketer reports, Gen-Y does them 21%, 14% and 10% of the time respectively. Further, their amount of in-person conversation with immediate family shows significant disparity from mothers older than them. In-person immediate family communication accounts for less than half of all Gen-Y mother communication at 48% in comparison to Gen-X at 58% and Baby Boomers at 62%.

So what does all this mean? Well, obviously, if the means are there we will use them, especially if they can instantaneously satisfy the situation at hand. Secondly, I can’t see dominating lifestyle factors, such as social media and mobile phones, which have been integrated into Gen-Y life, simply dissipating in a cold turkey like manner. And lastly, although there are clear privacy issues involved with the social and mobile worlds, we still trust these mediums enough to continually incorporate them into our lives.

I also understand that these characteristics aren’t necessarily exclusive to Gen-Y. Non Gen-Y mothers do the same things. I won’t deny that. The point here is not to indicate the similarities but rather, to show the notion that picking up a digital lifestyle is vastly different from growing up digital. And growing a digital family structure. And digitally grown parents parenting their digital children. We can hardly understand both the positive and negative implications here. Though, what is for certain here is Gen-Y moms are digital moms. Were we all really expecting everything to stay the same?

(Photo 1 credit, Photo 2 credit)

Tag Archive: communication

Introducing: User Marketing

Gen-Y Moms Are Digital Moms