The Profitable Impact Blockchain Technology Will Have on Social Media and Digital Marketing

Nick Rojas

Blockchain technology is beginning to impact social media and digital marketing in new and exciting ways. It is a disruption of the highest order. Marketers, social media managers, and business owners should begin to take notice of blockchain utility. Who doesn’t want to provide a powerful user experience and net better ROI?
What is blockchain technology utility? While many cryptocurrency enthusiasts are focused on the market value of the actual digital currency, the technology is far more important.
Decentralized ledgers (peer-to-peer network), smart contracts, and Basic Attention Token (BAT) are just a few key utilities that can disrupt the current state of social media and digital marketing.
For instance, the decentralized nature of blockchain technology can shift the power of a few in the industry to the masses.
“One of those industries or business models ripe and primed for disruption is social networks themselves,” Brian D. Evans of Inc. explained. “The same small number of players have been at it for over a decade now, with only a few exceptions. The power and control are centralized in just a few hands.”
Disruptive and beneficial, marketing and social media professionals need to watch the growing peer-to-peer network closely.
A few key blockchain technology statistics include…

  • $290 million was raised by blockchain startups in 2016
  • $1.4 billion in blockchain was invested by financial and tech firms
  • $1 million was the average investment in blockchain in 2017

$20 billion is the estimated blockchain market value by 2024

It’s All About Consumers

How does blockchain technology impact social media and digital marketing? Great question! In short, it’s all about consumers. After all, consumers are what social media and digital marketing strategies aim to engage with and convert.

Blockchain technology can return control to the consumer, said Brian Hart in an Inc. article. “Blockchain will allow consumers to take control of the ads they see and, hopefully, give advertisers a modern, sophisticated means to producing high-quality leads.” 

Sure, you may need to pay for consumer attention, but the ROI also shifts. Blockchain-protocols will take profits out of the middleman’s hands and back into the pockets of marketers.

If you are looking to the future as a social media guru or digital marketing specialist, here’s what you should know about blockchain technology.

1. Better Audience Analytics

The connection between social media and blockchain technology dates back to the inception of Bitcoin. In fact, if it were not for social forums and the spread of trending cryptocurrency news across all social channels, digital currency may not be anywhere near as popular as it is today.

The relationship between the blockchain and social media has now come full circle. The social channels that drove cryptocurrency to popularity can now use the technology that supports it for a number of benefits.

One of particular interest is better audience analytics. Content is consumed across a number of social media channels. As ad-based platforms, this can make it challenging to get a true sense of your audience’s worth.

The Ethereum blockchain provides a decentralized ledger for social media managers and businesses to better track data, like user interaction. This will paint a clearer picture of a user’s worth and allow you to compensate them for their interactions via social. 

For instance, messaging app Kik launched Kin, a cryptocurrency that raised nearly $100 million via ICO. The aim of Kin is to open up an in-app market where social media managers and digital marketers can deliver ads directly to users via Kik.

 2. Better Ad Buys

Online advertising has entered into a very challenging landscape. Accurate consumer data has become hard to obtain, and clicks are not always what they seem.

The rise of outsourced bots and people to click ads all day long has caused marketing campaign stats to be inflated. Bots were actually behind $7 billion in losses due to ad fraud in 2016.

Are your ad buys accurate? Chances are, not at all. But with blockchain technology, you can get better ad buys. The core of the blockchain rests on its transparency and secure peer-to-peer, decentralized network. Each block on the chain is created, verified, secured, and enforced without fail. 

Like in the case of social media interaction, marketers can easily identify true audience views. This will eliminate ad fraud, and save billions from being siphoned from digital marketing spend.

AdChain, an open protocol on the Ethereum blockchain is a great example of how this all can benefit digital marketing. Marketers and advertisers get full lifecycle transparency via a decentralized whitelist and campaign audit, returning control over first-party data.

3. No More Middlemen

Current ad practices involve middlemen for consumer data, like personal information and browsing history. But blockchain technology can eliminate middlemen for good.

If you want to increase your cost per impression (CPM), from one dollar to five, cutting out the middleman is essential. “The publishers that are setting the ground rules right now are making higher CPMs,” Forrester Research analyst Michael Greene said. 

Ad buy processes leave a lot of ROI off the table for marketers. The inception of the Basic Attention Token (BAT) has changed this. For instance, BAT lets digital marketers deliver ads directly to consumers that are actually interested in their brand or business.

Advertisers, marketers, and users can exchange BAT tokens via the Ethereum blockchain. Based on the attention a user has for an ad, you can pay the user for their engagement and increase ROI by increasing customer connections.

4. Deal Directly with Consumers

The utility of blockchain technology in cases such as BAT, digital marketers, social media managers, and business owners can appeal directly to their audience. The middlemen will no longer be feeding you inaccurate data, so now you can deal directly with consumers.

This will revolutionize digital marketing through consumer blockchain transactions that are decentralized and in the control of users. Sure, you will need to pay for consumer information still, but by dealing with your customers directly, the data will be far more accurate.

Consumers will get to opt-in and decide what ads they want to see and from which brands. The good news is that if a consumer does opt-in, they are already a high-quality lead, and thus far easier to convert. Your target will become smaller, but far more focused and profitable.

Blockchain Technology Signals User Experience Growth for Social Media and Digital Marketing

Since blockchain technology is still relatively new, in respects to its impact on social media and digital marketing, its future utility is wide-ranging. One of the most important elements for social and marketing specialists is user experience, and blockchain technology can provide user experience never seen before.

Targeted ads, powerful consumer connections, accurate data, secured platforms, fewer pop-ups, and a quality user experience will lead the way for brands in the not so distant future. Explore how blockchain technology can bring better ROI to your marketing and social media campaigns today!

Leave a Comment

Share this post

Related Posts

See all posts