Social Media Ecosystems and Affiliate Marketing

Social Media is a complex and highly integrated marketing practice and at times can be quite more bamboozling than necessary. DaveFleet put together a visual model to highlight social media as an evolving tool in a “marketing media ecosystem.” His model visually describes different marketing media including social media and how they can connect to a corporate brand including LinkedIn, Facebook, MSN, etc. [Personally I would have loved to have seen affiliate marketing in the diagram ]

Secondly, he put forward the idea that social media should be a fourth model considered in Corcoran’s Model on owned, paid and earned media. Corcoran describes that all marketing media can be categorized into these three groups and Dave has put forward a fourth, “social,” because these categories on their own do not singularly encompass social. Irrespective of how you wish to define your media in your marketing mix, these models pose interesting questions to an affiliate marketer including:

- Am I leveraging the most opportunities available to me to promote my message?

- How does our approach to affiliate marketing impact on the brand we represent?

Furthermore, depending on your philosophy and approach to affiliate marketing your affiliate program can infiltrate into all forms of marketing media.

1) As a brand you own your affiliate program creatives/messages – via affiliates we influence how we are seen on the internet and the community.

2) If your budget is big enough you can buy affiliates’ real estate with commissions, bonuses, prizes or

3) You can earn your affiliates by building trust and transparency through good affiliate management practices and affiliate software.

4)You can use social media to support your affiliate marketing activities and strengthen your overall marketing mix.

Tagged as: affiliate marketing, social media