Internet Marketing Blog

Pushing the Envelope with Interactive Brand Marketing

August 11, 2008 – 1:40 pm

Today’s web presents unique opportunities, especially in socially-relevant contexts. Using the best web 2.0 social marketing techniques can bring increased exposure, especially if your target audience spends any time on the Internet. We recently covered Brand Streaming and the benefits of FriendFeed but there’s more to it.

New techniques may proliferate your brand but a larger brand management strategy can help insure longevity, adoption and integrity. For all the benefits brand streaming may represent, there are downsides. Proper care needs to be asserted.

No one wants their brand to be involved in the next online presidential campaign blunder. Brands are simply not welcomed in all social contexts and you know the saying about first impressions. Experience is an imperative. As web 2.0 morphs into version 3.0 more challenges and opportunities emerge. Web 3.0, defined as such in Wikipedia as the “Semantic Web” is a web where applications can talk to applications. Sir Tim Berners-Lee explains it this way in Wikipedia,

“I have a dream for the Web [in which computers] become capable of analyzing all the data on the Web – the content, links, and transactions between people and computers. A ‘Semantic Web’, which should make this possible, has yet to emerge, but when it does, the day-to-day mechanisms of trade, bureaucracy and our daily lives will be handled by machines talking to machines. The ‘intelligent agents’ people have touted for ages will finally materialize.”

When enough content has been tagged in Web 2.0 a tipping point occurs. At this point, demand for more advanced applications and interactions will pick up. Interactive designers and developers will create new designs and that will further benefit brands. Your online brand may actually have intelligence built in. Doing so would give your brand a better since of itself. Perhaps it will know its own location on the web and may even understand the potential value of an interaction with a prospect before the interaction occurs. But what kind of interaction would be valuable?

Ultimately, clients will determine their own needs but we can offer some thoughts.

Let’s suppose you distribute your brand in an interactive logo in electronic postcards and on partner and affiliate websites. An interactive logo in a socio-semantic web would be able to interact with information collected on that website. Sensing this information, your interactive logo could then present a customized message, medium or pointers to more relevant information. An interactive logo could present useful information to those that see it, based on where and when they see it. Your logo can be your brand’s personal agent and could also report back on it’s own abilities to befriend potential customers.

Reaching targeted users is getting more focused and relevant. Experience in interactive brand marketing will help you secure the most return on your investment. Knowing what lies ahead can help you develop a vision of what your online brand strategy might look like. The ability of your interactive marketing agency to “Get” Web 3.0 will remain a strong consideration through the evolution of social media.