Making Small.World pay
The successful development of Small.World will rely on careful design of the revenue stream. The app is hinges on the content and access to data from as wide a user-base as possible. The efficacy of the application is significantly improved by the quantity of suggestions and level of detail offered about a particular area.
It is crucial that this application is as easy to use and open as possible with minimal barriers to user uptake. The more users, the greater the product and the potential for increased market penetration. As the success of this application relies upon having a wide range of users in as many locations as possible, the subscription approach is considered inappropriate and potentially harmful to the growth of our user-base.
Research suggests that users concerns about targeted advertising rank far behind fears about cyber-bullying, identity theft and government surveillance, indeed only 4% of respondents in a survey cited behavioural advertising as a concern. Effective and appropriate targeting of adverts has been shown to significantly decrease consumer’s irritability with online advertising.
Popular Social Media platforms tend to attract a broad demographic and as such can be attractive to advertisers. The value of Social Media platforms which require a login and sign-up process is in the potential for adverts to be targeted at specific audiences and demographics.
Small.World will be in a position to offer the potential to offer a rich mine of customer preferences and interests to advertisers, as well as location and demographic details about our users.
Small.World’s main selling point to advertisers may be broken down as follows:
-Demographic information (age, gender etc.)
-Location
-Interests
-Interests of Social Group
-Access to contacts and social groupings
-Activity and behavioural data
-Internet usage data (e.g. device preference)
The USP of Small.World to advertisers is that we offer an easy and effective way of targeting real social groups. We may be able to offer an opportunity of targeting people who are known to each other offline with the same online ad experience. This may create interesting opportunities for marketing strategies to harness the potential of the social group and the reinforcing of advertising with a peer group.
Our users will be constantly providing a rich source of data, refining their own interests and social groups creating a powerful tool for very specific advertising opportunities. Users should be empowered to give feedback on ads in an attempt to remove inappropriate advertising. This function will also allow us to feedback to advertisers on the effectiveness of their targeting strategy.
References:
Bachman, K. (2015). Poll: Targeted Advertising Is Not the Bogeyman. AdWeek. [online] Available at: http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/poll-targeted-advertising-not-bogeyman-updated-148649 [Accessed 15 Apr. 2015].
Pan, S. and Yang, H. (2014). Targeted Advertising on Competing Platforms. 1st ed. [ebook] Ohio: Ohio State University, pp.1-36. Available at: http://econ.ohio-state.edu/hyang/Tageted-Ads-Jan14.pdf [Accessed 15 Apr. 2015].
Who Likes What: Social Media By Demographic. (2011). [Blog] KISSmetrics. Available at: https://blog.kissmetrics.com/social-media-by-demographic/ [Accessed 15 Apr. 2015].