The early Internet should be dominated by portals. From China's three major portals to AOL in the United States, they are all information giants on the Internet. These portals, while providing content, have attracted huge attention from the Internet population, marking a very thorough era of centralization.
Around 2005, a so-called "decentralization" movement gradually became known on the Internet. This movement has become popular with the popularity of blogs, a zero-threshold web page form. In less than two or three years, there are already tens of millions of blogs in mainland China alone, ranging from portal blog channels to professional blog service providers to individual independent blogs. '
In this decentralization movement, not only blogs, but also photo album websites, video websites, Weibo websites, and social networking websites have appeared one after another. The audience's attention, which was already fragmented by nearly 1.5 million websites, became even more confusing in this movement.
The decentralization movement has given audiences on the Internet another identity: messengers. They are not just passive recipients of information, but can also make their voices heard. Whether it is BBS or Blog, this behavior is extremely simple. But everything has pros and cons. During this disaster relief activity, many people seemed to have noticed this. d' K4 t3 R8 f! m
In fact, for most people, only in their own professional fields are they more than mere receivers of information. In other fields, such as an IT expert in the sports field, rather than saying that he/she is willing to look for information on his/her own, it is better to say that he/she is willing to give up the "freedom" of information search. For commercial organizations, the inability to capture attention from nowhere is a headache. Internet marketing urgently needs a new "centralization" movement. Or, to use a nicer word: integration.
When commercial organizations conduct a campaign, special websites (commonly known as minisites in the industry) are a common method. Minisite's task is to gather all kinds of information that the brand wants to display, such as the brand's story, the brand's cultural connotation, the specific usage of the brand when it is embodied in the product (or why this product should be used), and even directly place online sales channels. Of course, I won’t forget to include some testimonials from users.
This is indeed an integration of information. For organizations, this is the best means of information aggregation. Fragmented information distribution is detrimental to promotion. But the question is, how to promote this minisite?
The first method is the most common. It is backed by a high-traffic website (such as building one on Sina), or buying an advertising position hyperlink pointing back to the minisite, which may be slightly effective. But the cost is also obvious: high advertising costs. The more fact is that there are a large number of such dead sites on the Internet, which are beautifully done but rarely visited. This kind of promotion method from the center (high-traffic website banner) to the center (ministite) is expensive and has limited effect. 8 K/ P0 c; Z" z0 N5 R* d) _- a! s
The second method is to invite people to visit, of course, it will be assisted by some methods similar to the so-called "database marketing". Most Internet users have the experience of receiving spam. Yes, this is called email marketing, and the cost is indeed very low, but in the context of the current efforts of large email service providers to stifle spam, it can reach users' inboxes directly. There are only a few of them, and even fewer are attracting them to click again. However, after all, the cost is extremely low, and doing it is better than nothing.
In fact, although they are trying to create a center (brand or product) and trying to integrate the fragmented speech and attention of the Internet, planners must pay attention to the fact that there are tens of millions of blogs and 1.5 million websites. We can first use the search engine advertising model to explain how to take advantage of this raging decentralization movement.
We all know that search engines (whether Baidu or Google) provide a type of advertisement called "keyword". For example, if you type the word "cancer" into Baidu, you will see a large number of hospitals that treat cancer on the first page of search results. Yes, they are ads, the result of hospitals buying the word "cancer." This is an advertisement on the search engine's own website.
Search engines also provide something similar to an advertising alliance. Baidu calls it Baidu Promotion and Google calls it "Google Adwards". Any website (including blogs) can obtain a piece of advertising code from a search engine and deploy it on its own web page, thereby generating advertisements on the page. When viewers click on these ads, the webmasters of the website can naturally share the corresponding advertising revenue from the search engine.
This is the more advanced advertising business model of search engines than portal websites: activating any website in the world to become a media platform for advertising. If only search engines place ads on their own websites, then, no matter what, Baidu will not defeat the portal and become the leader in online advertising in the first quarter of 2008.
It is very important to strengthen your central position (if Baidu and Google are not strong enough, it will be difficult to establish an advertising alliance. The facts tell us that there are still many unknown advertising alliances on the market), but we are fully aware of the existence of advertising alliances on the Internet. It is also important to avoid too many small centers. I am not encouraging all commercial organizations to buy a search engine keyword advertisement when doing a business topic. The following example can illustrate how to use decentralization to complete a new round of centralized integration.
Last year, Safeguard planned to launch a charity event with commercial purposes: the Great Wall of Health. The main purpose of the event is to select ten health ambassadors to go to mountainous areas to carry out hygiene education: wash your hands and use soap. (Safeguard does not intend for mountainous areas to purchase large quantities of its soap. What it wants to establish is: Safeguard represents health. ). It first created a minisite, with a flash drawing of the Great Wall on this web page. Each brick represents a person who supports the event. In other words, the more people who support it, the more likely it is that the Great Wall will be built ahead of time.
So, how to provide support? Is it by clicking on this minisite? The more important question is, how to let the Internet know that such a minisite exists? What Safeguard does is to use the power of blog.
Safeguard commissioned BlogBus.com, a professional blog hosting service provider, to implement this online charity event, and the latter produced a "plug-in" (widget). Any blog (including users of BlogBus or not) can load a module in the sidebar of their blog: Nominate me as a health ambassador. This module can complete two functions: first, call on netizens to vote for the blogger to become a health ambassador (at the same time, technically, a brick will be automatically added to the flash mentioned above); second, viewers can also follow the module Click on a hyperlink in the minisite to see the event, or simply get the code yourself and deploy the same plug-in on your blog. Of course, the words "Safeguard Health Ambassador Activity" will be written on the lower right side of the module to achieve the purpose of public relations promotion of the brand.
In less than a month, tens of thousands of bloggers participated in this event either because of the attraction of minisite or because they saw the sidebar modules of other blogs. The number of support votes received by each blog (supporting itself) It means one effective click and spread), allowing the Great Wall in the minisite to quickly complete the construction. Safeguard achieved its goal at a very low cost: establishing Safeguard health brand communication and recruiting health ambassadors to complete this activity.
The decentralization movement symbolized by web2.0 is an important trend in the Internet today. With the advancement of technology, more and more people can easily build a small center (small website, exclusive page, or blog) of his/her own. Each small center competes with the larger center for attention. Integration is to integrate these attentions, but this process, interestingly, is achieved through the product of decentralization.