Monday 16 March 2009

This Is Interesting...

So everyone is aware that social networking online is taking over the world, application by application. Well, advertisers are aware of this too and so are slowly coming up with more and more intelligent ways to advertise and take advantage of this ever growing niche.

I have come across a new idea for advertising within social media, its being called WOMI (Word Of Mouth Impression.) It is basically a mini-application which users add to their facebook, twitter etc which spreads itself out through ones personal social network of contacts and friends.

Here is an official description of the process:

WOMI campaigns present visitors with ads asking them for some kind of input either though a multiple choice question or using a text field. SocialMedia then uses this input to customize ads which are shown to the user’s friends on the same social network.

For example, if an ad for Star Wars had a call-to-action asking if I was on the Light Side or Dark Side of the Force, it could take my response and then present my friends with an ad that said “Jason is on the Light Side, how about you?”. In turn, their responses are passed on to all of their friends, making this among the first kind of advertising with a viral element.

Now this sounds interesting, it could work great providing it leaves the user with some control and does not invade, or appear to invade a person's network. Users love to get involved with surveys and polls etc so this could give an advert great coverage.

But is this idea taking it just a little too far? Should users remain in control of which contacts this application can target?

Thoughts?


3 comments:

Christine said...

Just about brillant!
I so wish I could come up with stuff like that!
Good job!

Shania said...

Thanks you very much for following my blog.

Christine said...

BTW: I will be catching up on Jack and Stephanie .... I have really missed them!