Social Marketing is Intelligent Design

In today’s highly connected, media-driven world, it has become very apparent that creative thinking and design matter immensely in marketing strategies. Most important in these campaigns is the ability of marketing talent to correctly gauge consumer interest based upon quantitative data generated from market research.

The true debate begins in the data vs. creative aspect of social marketing. Anyone can read data, but it takes a true critical thinker to read that data and correctly anticipate what consumers will respond to. Caroline McCarthy (“Facebook, Google, and the Data Design Disaster”) predicts an upswing in the attention marketers pay to creative art resources over strictly following data charts of past market research.

Design will feature prominently in the current and upcoming campaigns of online marketers on the web. In the social age of Facebook and Myspace, attractive ads that people will want to share and pass on will be highly preferable to the old advertising methods that consumers are now desensitized to. In the past, marketers have relied heavily on data reports, but these reports don’t tell the entire story of why the consumer purchases, only what they purchase. Marketers will need creative teams of critical thinkers who can plug this data into the social world of the web in such a way that it gives them new answers on who the consumers are and what they want. It is vital that customers are given new and exciting forms of advertising, and this cannot be done by following old formulas based on outdated information.

Consumers now are incredibly connected to one another. They share links, videos, images, and all forms of media available through the net. A successful marketing strategy will take this into effect, and create intriguing and even viral marketing to further embed themselves into the social culture of the web.

Marketers often lack the ability to adjust their strategies mid-campaign. Much like a movie that is doomed to be a hit or a flop even before release, marketers often rely on predetermined strategies that cannot be altered once the ball gets rolling. The most successful marketers in coming years will be those that can adapt to current market trends on the fly, and adjust their campaigns accordingly, using the information they get during the campaign.

Campaigns that rely simply on market data are doomed to fail, because they cannot change course mid-stream. They are based on old formulas that the consumer will overlook, because they are inundated with similar advertisements every hour of their waking lives. Only creative and fresh approaches will spur any kind of interest from a numbed audience. Only excellent and unique design can win over the jaded consumer.

Only during the campaign will the most effective strategies reveal themselves, and if marketers wait until the end of the campaign to implement new ideas, it will already be too late. Advertisers must act while the consumer is still engaged, rather than taking the approach that it will work next time, rather than implementing the new technique now.

Social design means using a strategy that people will want to share with others, and one that can easily be shared. It will allow people to interact with one another by promoting topics of conversation or interest. It is also a design that is easily translatable to other media, and can pass to and from different formats easily. This does not always translate to good artwork. Good social design is based in ideas that can be passed easily from one person to the next.