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The debate rages on regarding which is more important for online marketers, content or targeting.  Well, I have the answer…content will always win!

I’ve come at this question from a couple different angles and the winning argument is quite simple; content can survive, and thrive, without data targeting, but data targeting cannot live without content.  Simply put; if you build good content people will find it, but if you have crappy content no amount of data or targeting can save you because your audience, no matter how targeted, simply won’t engage!

Its similar to an age-old truism in marketing, that great advertising cannot sell a poor product.  You can’t make a consumer purchase a product that simply doesn’t work for them.  In online marketing you can’t push an ad lacking a fair value exchange for the customer, regardless of how many data points you use to deliver that ad.  A fair value exchange, or at the very least something that grabs their attention, is what good advertising is all about.

Good creative and good products always win, and so does good content!  A site that is witty, provides a value, is unique, or is simply done well will generate an audience.  A piece of great content will drive eyeballs.  No matter how you say it, content is king and data has quickly become a commodity.  I can buy data from any hundreds of sources, many of which have sprouted up in just the last two years.  I can find purchase data, social graph data, network data, connection data and I can find recency information that qualifies all of the above to help me develop a true analysis of my potential customer, but if the message doesn’t resonate then all that targeting is for nothing.

On the flipside, a general ad buy with excellent creative that breaks through the clutter will create awareness.  With the web, awareness can easily go viral and your audience will start to talk about you to one another.  Creative has not been commoditized because creative cannot be commoditized.  Production of that creative certainly can be, but the development of an idea, and the application of that idea to your campaign will always be something special.  To quote another age-old discussion, it’s the art behind the science.  Science is certainly important, but science without art is useless.

I know that many of you with your pumped up valuations and your millions of dollars in revenue are going to argue with me, but it doesn’t matter, because if you argue this point then you’re simply missing the point.  I didn’t say data isn’t valuable; I said its secondary to creative and content.  That concept is irrefutable.  There’s really no argument you can make!  How many times have you seen a campaign tank because the creative was poor?  Trust me – I know you’ve used that excuse.

Of course, you can’t talk about content and creative online without making the simple observation that most of it sucks.  Most creative messaging online is just bad, and that’s why performance is so low.  Online marketing, regardless of how much money gets put into it, will never surpass TV as the primary vehicle until the creative gets better, and that depends on two things happening; the placements need to become more impactful, and the people creating those messages need to get better.  Of course, that could be an article for another day entirely, right?

Do you agree with my analysis?  Let me know on the Spin Board!

Where do you think the future of social media lies?  Is it in the world of branding, or is it the world of direct response, lead gen, cost per acquisition-type marketing?

The bigger picture of the future of online media frames my answer.  The future of online media is most definitely rooted in brand marketing.  To date, digital media and specifically online, has been an action-based marketing vehicle, driving activity such as clicks and conversions, but for the business to mature and evolve it HAS to be able to deliver brand metrics and apply them successfully.   We already see the transition in mobile and online video, where marketers realize that it’s not about clicks, but it’s about targeted exposure, awareness, consideration and intent.  That understanding of how to use these aspects of digital media is starting to influence traditional digital banners and ad units.  Brands are seeing that its about building frequency in the eyes of the target audience, and eliminating wasted impressions against those people you are not interested in speaking to.  These metrics, reach and frequency, are coupled with impact and engagement to create metrics that brands can apply to all their marketing campaigns, regardless of vehicle, and generate understanding of how consumers become customers.

If this is the case, and there’s definitely lots of data that support my points, then it’s logical to think that social media is going to quickly become a valuable branding tool.  Currently marketers are mixed on how to use social, with too many people not valuing the impressions because they don’t have the proper evaluation metrics in place to create an apples to apples comparison.  Social media impressions, or conversational media impressions, are difficult to value vs. traditional TV impressions, print impressions or even standard online impressions.  The missing factor in this comparison is an industry standard for impact and engagement.  How engaging are TV, print or traditional online vs. social media impressions?   How engaging are consumer-to-consumer impressions in social media vs. the brand-to-consumer impressions that take place on Facebook’s news feed or in a standard eCRM effort?  What metrics can we put in place that will create an industry standard for measuring and comparing these vehicles?

These questions are ones that will absolutely be answered over the next 2-3 years, as the business matures.  Unfortunately, my prediction is the answers will be categorical in nature, with very little cross-industry standard capable of being put in place.  For example, one of the most important questions to be asked in the industry so far is what is the value of a social media fan or follower?  That question has not been answered to any comfort level, with the response ranging from $3 to $113, depending on the source.  The true answer, I suspect, is “it depends”.  It depends on the category of product or service, and it depends on the depth of engagement that takes place between the brand and their fans.  If the brand utilizes their social platform in an economical, engagement-driven manner, then the value can be high.  If a brand uses their social platform in an excessive, broadcast-centric manner with no true value exchange to take place, then the value is low.  It’s not dissimilar to the way that a brand uses eCRM and email; if you blitz your audience then they become numb or disinterested and the value declines.  If you hit them economically and offer something of value, the return can be high!

So the long-winded answer to the question, in my eyes, is that social will definitely be considered a branding vehicle as it moves ahead.  There are certainly some marketers and agencies looking at it now as a lead gen or response-driven medium, but that view is short sighted and doesn’t place a value on the word-of-mouth component that social can provide, nor does it take into account the targeted nature of the self-selected audience it reaches. 

Do you agree?   Let me know on the Spin Board!