Marketing, Advertising and the Social Web

An interesting panel discussion on marketing and advertising in social media just finished. If nothing else, it was interesting because the conclusions seemed to be that no-one really knew how it will pan out.

Antony Mayfield was busy wishing himself out of a job: he wants to see the end of PR director and search engine marketing as job titles – his former and current jobs! He also thinks that companies shouldn’t advertise on blogs (boo!), they should spend the money on understanding them.

Smart the square, Helga the dominatrix – were two brand personalities represented on MySpace, and which have been fairly successful, according to Ian Delaney.

More from Mayfield: “Search engine tricks aren’t going to work – they’re no longer looking for sites that look like the best websites, but those that are.”

General warning: Beware the flying penises in Second Life! Users can invade your PR event with some, uh, unconventional interruptions. And Anthony reports visiting branded spaces within the online world, and being the only person there.

And widgets with your brand on them are a brilliant idea, if they’re useful, apparently.