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By Frank Cutitta, IDG Connect
My old high school girlfriend Mona recently friended me on Facebook and I haven’t been the same since. She said I look just like I did in our senior year. The next hour of the morning after receiving the friend request was wasted. Mona and I were connected again…and no other work was being done. When I finally got myself back together I received a notice that one of my college roommates was following me on Twitter. There goes another hour.
Most of us have that precious 45 minutes or so to check the overnight email while having coffee and cereal at home before diving into the workday. We would typically wade through the corporate mail, then move on to some well-branded commercial mail offering white papers, webcasts or perhaps the latest news from min.
Studies have been done in all of our respective industries on how much time we can devote to studying information related to considered purchases. For example, research from our IDG Market Fusion studies shows that IT professionals have on average 3.5 hours per week to consume and digest outside information that would affect the purchase of information technology products.
I would argue that the Monas in our lives are changing that time allocation…and not for the better. We now live in a new age of “narcissistic media.”
Last month, Nielsen reported that 17% of time spent on the Internet in August was devoted to social networking and blog sites, up from 6% a year ago. I could argue that this increase came at the expense of other online marketing options such as traditional email. Since the number of hours in the day cannot be increased, a reduction is made in either corporate/client communications or in a reduction in reading commercial email.
Narcissistic media is both friend and foe of the digital marketer and media company. If you can find a way to embrace it, your company gains precious minutes (or hours) of viewing time. On the other hand, companies should ignore it at their own peril, as the Nielsen numbers will only increase in the months ahead and the attention of your customers will be diluted.
Don’t get me wrong, the traditional opt-in email marketing business will not be going away. Trusted “from” lines will continue to lead to opened email and revenue-producing engagements of various sorts will occur. But as the time spent on blogs and social media grows, so will the need to employ narcissistic media strategies in industries where narcissism is not the first word you think of.
Let's face it—you’re never going to be able to compete with Mona, or a sorority sister you haven’t seen in years. But you will be able to compete with the “narcissistic packaging” that delivers the Mona in your life to you. Your customers will begin to focus more on messages in Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter wrappers simply because they have a subliminal feel of personalization and connectedness. These messages (and the alerts that precede them) will begin to rise above the clutter of from lines and subject lines from the hundreds of anonymous brands entering the lead-generation gold rush. The combination of brand affinity and a social or conversational connection will be key to increased response rates and optimized engagement.
I’ll have more on the content optimization aspects of narcissistic media in my next Minsiders column. Mona just posted some old prom pictures. so I’ve gottta run.
Minsider columnist Frank Cutitta is general manager of IDG Connect. You can friend him on Facebook, connect with him on LinkedIn, or follow him at www.twitter.com/fcutitta.
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