| Kippreport.com

Making friends with Facebook

February 25, 2010 1:06 by Aarti Nagraj

“It’s like being the new kid in school. That’s what brands are in the social media space. You know social media is essentially a people place; it’s a human space and any brand that wants to get involved is privileged to do so. So the means by which they will get involved is like that new kid coming to school, trying to make friends. ‘Hey, what are you bringing to the table,’ kind of thing,” he explains.

Yousef Tuqan Tuqan, the CEO of Flip Media, agrees. Social media has to be a two-way conversation between the brands and the consumers, he says. But the nature of social networks changes at a rapid pace, and so it’s imperative for brands to concentrate on keeping track of their consumers, he adds. Consumers these days are smart and very demanding, and hence it is essential that brands communicate openly with them, he says.

But even as some companies are identifying the benefits of such an accessible and easy platform to connect with their consumers, advertisers are still faced with other problems, says Tuqan.

“The challenge for advertisers at the moment is that no one really knows from a communication point of view, who is in charge,” he says. “Because is it the advertising agency, controlling the message and putting it up there, is it the media company who is responsible for spreading the message and using media, or is it the PR agency, who is already managing that conversation with consumers and all the other channels, or is it digital guys like Flip, who should controlling this very complicated and fast changing media,” he says.

Pages: 1 2 3

Tags: advertising, brands, costs, Facebook, marketing, social media, spend, UAE