Toyota enters YouTube

We've talked extensively about the different ways companies can use social media in a non-intrusive fashion and still reach their market. With online-video advertising projected to reach increasing numbers, some companies are starting to understand how to garner the power of social media.

Toyota has now decided to sponsor a comedy channel on YouTube. See Toyota gets it better than YouTube as the company rejected YouTube's proposal as more of the same static advertising.

The company is shelling $4million dollars for what it wanted: "it wanted something users could participate in rather than just view". In turn YouTube will develop an algorithm to select up-and-coming comedy videos.

Will Toyota's risky strategy pay? Read the whole article; it's truly worth the five minutes to see that a company at least "gets" how social media is changing internet advertising.

Doing it right

Students, remember you have to start posting. To give you an idea of what I'm looking for I am doing the first post. The article posted also serves as an example of the type of article you can use for your trade article presentation.

Businessweek has published an article on how users are getting fed up with the advertising boom in online social networks; please read since we will discuss in class. Can this spell the end of advertising in Social Media? Not exactly.

Advertising in social networks such as Facebook and MySpace has simply become an extension of regular web advertising. While it is more targeted, it still is plain and obvious advertising that does not even try to blend into the social media world.

Both Facebook and MySpace committe two major faux pas with their users. Facebook's Beacon which alerted users of the purchases of their friends created a 75K member backlash and led some advertisers to think twice before using it. MySpace went further; it actually started posting on members' sites - converting the personal space into advertising space without the user's consent.

Now more than ever it is obvious that advertising on social media cannot follow the same model as regular advertising. It is not about flocking to the new trend; it is about figuring out how to become part of the community and actually be invited. It's about "how to get invited to the party". Customers are now in control and advertisers need to learn to respect that.

What are your thoughts?