Social Currency Is the New Mantra of Mobile Advertising

The advent of Mobile Advertising has changed quite a few dimensions of the world of Internet Advertising. Mobile internet services made instant replies possible which led to active discussions in the online social and professional platforms. These discussions and sharing of ads and posts led to the beginning of brand new techniques like viral marketing. New concepts like Online Reputation Management (ORM) and Social Currency, etc., emerged. Of them, Social Currency has become an object of pursuit as the rankings are now prominently depended on it.

A recent survey by Yahoo re-affirmed that creative expression and fun factor are the key factors in a Mobile Ad. A new addition to the list of the key factors is Social Currency. According to the report, 67% of the total taking part said creative expression should be facilitated, 61% said increase in Social Currency, and others said that the Ads on the Mobiles should be shareable, interesting & fun. Social Currency can be defined as a collective of the potential and actual resources that occur due to the shares and discussions in the online medium. Thus, the success of Social Media Optimization (SMO) is directly proportional to Social Currency. With the intention of the Mobile Ads shifting from mere visibility to active visibility, Social Currency gained grounds prominently. Keeping a post active and alive with discussions and shares has become the target of Online Advertising. Mobile Advertising, due to its nature of being targeted at mobile users has the biggest scope of ensuring shares and comments. New shares and comments are immediately notified, allowing for instant replies. This urgency of action brought on by Advertising on Mobiles has changed the dynamics of Advertising. Apart from posts and ensuing discussions, another factor which contributes to the Social Currency is Mobile Advertising Apps. Mobile Ads are carefully embedded into the various apps. Both the above methods allowed an automatic targeting of the relevant segments. A user using a banking app can be shown an ad on home loans. A post on current affairs is an intelligent way of marketing a newspaper as the readers would primarily be those interested in staying updated on news. This automatic segmentation saves a lot of efforts of the surveys and the better targeting results in better conversions to sales. Since Mobile Ads also enjoy a higher level of interactivity, they can be easily converted into personalized ads. Thus, they concentrate on creating a relation with the audience instead merely being visible. As the feeds and reviews on practically any product or service can be easily obtained online, Online Reputation has become a huge factor. Mobile Ads strive to fill the internet with good reviews born out of the relationship it creates with the user. A Mobile Advertisement, using dollops of creative expression and attempting promotion using humor, thoughtfulness, or any other relevant emotion which the users can identify with, will automatically become popular. The shares and comments will then generate positive reviews about the advertised brand, creating a relationship which was originally intended by the ad.

Social Currency is thus the targeted result of the Mobile Ads today. They attempt communicating with the users in such a way that a relationship is developed, which then plays a vital role in conversion to sales. Thus, accurate targeting of the audience, which would aid in the formation of relationship is what the Mobile Advertising Agencies target today.