Social Media and Data - Beyond the Cookie

Image by scubadive67 via Flickr

Recently had a back and forth on Twitter with Andy Monfried, CEO of Lotame as he made the prediction that 2010 will be the year that social media comes of age for advertising.

@btomasette:

@andymonfried:

2010 will be the year that we go from “time telling” about social media to “CLOCK BUILDING” about it’s uses and ways for companies2use data
agreed but I think it’s also the year where advertisers get away from the banner and embrace real-time media buying

I think there is a lot to be said about this and the trick is to think beyond the cookie. Right now I think too many ad networks and publishers are relying on cookies when there is an army of content creators (bloggers and editors) who know their users and already have a process in place to connect with companies to create content around them. This is called PR. A company does a press release, pitches the story to writers and writers choose to pick it up or not. Right now this process is completely separate from advertising which is banners and month long media buys and year long media plans.

The problem is social media is becoming more and more real-time so PR and advertising have an opportunity to merge. Advertising buying and planning need to adapt to this and technology needs to make it easy.

Once this happens and you merge PR and Advertising services like Gnip and Lotame and Google Search trends will be able to be put in the hands of the content creator and advertiser and we will be able to function beyond the cookie and beyond the banner.