As a marketer, I pay attention to how corporations are leveraging the latest digital marketing channels to promote their content and brands. For example, “The 30 Most Genius Content Marketing Examples of 2014 (So Far),” here and this one, “Five examples of brands that are nailing Pinterest.”
I’m just as interested (maybe more so) in how individuals are using digital channels like Pinterest to promote their individual selves today. In some cases, individuals on the latest digital channels are giving corporate brands a run for their money in terms of the number of account Followers. For example, one individual, Joy Cho, has more than 13 million people who follow her Pinterest account. If you’re of the millennial age, then you’ve likely heard of the young Frenchman, Jérôme Jarre, who has amassed more than 8 million Vine followers.
The majority of digital channels today make it easy for all individuals to convey and share their preferences related to a multitude of subjects. For example, Pinterest provides an almost literal picture of the interests and preferences of its users.
Other digital channels, like Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ also make it simple for individuals to indicate and share their preferences (on Facebook and on LinkedIn, you hit the “Like” button to indicate that you like certain content, while on Google+ you hit the +1 button to indicate your preferences).
Have you ever asked yourself why the latest digital channels include functionality that strongly promotes individual preference sharing and makes it so easy to do? In the flurry of excitement over expression of preferences online, users can easily forget the reality of online behavioral tracking.
Today online behavior is being tracked more and more often by companies who want to identify and target more individuals as potential buyers of their products. And new digital channels providers are capturing and making the preference data of their individual subscribers available to those companies, usually at a cost.
Also, many companies today are using software solutions to collect, mine and model online individual preference data and then create visual representations of that data, all in an effort to gain new insights and knowledge that their organizations can use to propel their businesses forward.
Speaking of data visualization, I enjoy seeing different data visualization examples on the Information is Beautiful site. What about you? Have you ever stopped to think about what kind of model all of your personal, historical online data would create if summarily captured?
Would your online behavioral data present a Kate Moss/Kurt Cobain-thin-like image or would it reveal a more robust Kate Upton-like visualization? What trends or secrets of your life would be revealed? Which of your data points would surface as uniquely beautiful, like the mole over Cindy Crawford’s lip or the gap in Lauren Hutton’s front teeth?
When I was a young girl I dreamt of being a model. I had no idea that I would actually fulfill that dream to the extent that I have become a data point in someone else’s data model. Like you no doubt.
Article written by Ruth Dobson-Torres
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