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Cape Town - Google’s purchase of Wildfire last week for a
reported $250m is confirmation that social media marketing has come into its
own, said Eric Edelstein, CEO of social engagement platform evly.
“In the past few weeks we’ve seen three major deals that
amount to a billion-dollar bet on the power of social marketing,” says
Edelstein. “Apart from Google’s purchase of Wildfire, we’ve also seen Oracle
buy Vitrue for $300m and Buddy Media sold to Salesforce for $689m.”
Edelstein believes there is still plenty of room in the
market for more players. “Everyone is doing something slightly different, and
evly has a unique edge because unlike most other social marketing companies
we’re not just about entertainment.”
He says both Wildfire and Buddy Media have specialised in
relatively shallow customer engagement through competitions, sweepstakes and
other light entertainment. “The information flow is still very one-way,” he
says. “The client can count clicks and shares, but richer communication doesn’t
happen. We think that leaves a lot of value on the table.”
“evly enables rich, two-way communication between brands and
their customers”, says Edelstein. “Customers are one of the best sources of
innovation and ideas any company has. But traditionally it’s been difficult and
expensive to tap into that resource with brands not truly knowing who these
people are. With evly, the power of social engagement becomes easy to harvest –
and that same engagement can be extended not only to fans, but also to
employees.”
Edelstein says that while Facebook is the current favoured
platform for customer engagement, any serious social marketing player should be
able to engage with customers across multiple platforms. “Facebook has done a
good job of accommodating brands and organisations, but it’s not purpose-built
for them,” he says. “There are other ways and places to reach customers, and
more will continue to appear. The key is to engage with people in their own
preferred environments.”
“If you harness it correctly, the power of social marketing can turn marketing from a pure cost to an investment in the future sustainability of a business,” concludes Edelstein.
