Social Networking…

Since mobile marketing has really picked up over the last five years it was something I never learned about in college.  Like every other person with a college degree focused in marketing I was wondering what was next.  I had worked in promotions for years but never thought of it as a full time job.  I did not have any friends that ever did anything like that so I naturally never even knew to consider it.  It was something I was never educated on and never heard of.  Once I landed in the mobile marketing industry things I noticed started to change.

Since this is still a relatively new form of marketing people still do not come out of college thinking about mobile marketing.  People interested in pursuing a job in experiential marketing are in some sort of social network where someone else has done or is doing experiential marketing.  More often than not people are hired into this type of marketing through some kind of social networking.  Brothers and sisters, to best friends, to their best friends people are learning about mobile marketing.

Besides looking to get a job in mobile marketing, social networking is a very powerful tool for the product being promoted as well.  You may have a friend that goes to a concert of large festival and talk about their experience.  They may have mentioned how much fun they had, but it’s the specific fun they had.  If they did something cool like jump into a pool of sharks they are going to want to talk about it.  You then associate that experience with the brand that allowed you to do it.  The people in your social network you tell about your experience may go to the same event later and will look for that same exciting experience.  “My friend told me you get to jump into a pool of sharks at this event.”  “Really, lets go and look for that.”  As simple as this conversation sounds, it opens the door to more people exposed to the same experience and the brand that gives them that experience.

You rely on people in your social networks to tell you about products they have tried or things they have experienced.  When people hear about how good a product is, others are more inclined to give it a try.  You can see an advertisement and go buy something.  But if you hear anything bad about a product no matter how good their advertisement is, you may not try it out for yourself.  People rely on their social networks and this has been a huge reason the mobile marketing is really picking up.

Without social networking I would have not had the opportunity to get into mobile marketing.  Maybe one-day people will learn about it in college.