Social media marketing is increasingly becoming a choreographed dance.
Where elements of paid media, earned media, and owned media all play important roles, supporting the others and amplifying the results for all.
The world is changing.
“Media” and “Marketing” are colliding faster than ever before, which is why we no longer can ignore the importance of Converged Media.
Converged media can be defined by a process in which companies combine Paid, Owned, and Earned (POE) media to amplify a brand’s marketing strategy.
And POE media is evolving, as a dance, from the early days of say a box step, to a much more intricate Tango. With this complexity comes benefits and challenges.
A report released by Rebecca Lieb and Jeremiah Owyang of Altimeter Group takes an in-depth look at the problems facing the marketing and communications industries as a whole. It is a great report, but I found two points of significant importance:
1. Strong, versatile leaders are essential to the success of POE Media
In today’s marketing ecosystem, systems of governing are intricate, and often forced into silos both on the brand side as well as the agency/vendor side. Brands are constantly being pulled by advertising and public relations agencies, media partners and software vendors, competing for a share of responsibility or a bigger budget. Information can often times be vague, miscommunicated, or not communicated at all, and in the end hurts the brand and leaves everyone dissatisfied.
Someone has to step up inside your organization who is in touch with all the different parties and can make sure that a cohesive strategy is executed across all forms of Paid, Earned and Owned. They need to ensure the brand is being monitored across all channels, defining KPI’s, and creating accountability for the projects.
2. Flexibility and experimentation are no longer a competitive advantage
As the report explains, customers rarely stop to note where a piece of content originated. New technologies and platforms come and go in an instant, some last and some fail.
Jeremiah Owyang calculates 525 potential permutations (different paths along the customer journey) per persona, meaning that the customer is more empowered to make purchasing choices than ever. Brands looking to maximize the likelihood of showing up at the end of those permutations need to be ready to adapt at the same pace as their consumers.
You can read the report for yourself here.
Is your brand/agency/company utilizing converged media? What challenges are you currently facing?