While we're well past the Golden Age of comics, we're square in the Golden Age of the Internet. Speeds are becoming faster and faster, content is being published like never before, and connecting with friends and new people is easier than ever thanks to social networks. It's also easier than ever for others to discover information about us online, which may lead some to label this the Gilded Age of the Internet.
It's this ease of discovery that causes people to get nervous about doing anything online; after all, who hasn't heard a story of someone getting their identity stolen and having huge amounts charged onto their credit cards. However, it seems as if the younger generation doesn't seem to care about people finding out stuff about them, or rather, have different priorities in what they allow to be found out about them. They post every important life event on Facebook, tweet every second of their day on Twitter, and share every meal they have on Instagram. This plethora of information is a marketer's dream; more information means tailored advertisements which equals higher sales.
But how can comics take advantage of all of this information? The most obvious option would be to show advertisements to people who said they liked a comic movie adaption. It can, and does, go deeper than that though. Comic companies could take advantage of people's willingness to provide information and desire to express themselves and their opinions by asking readers to give their thoughts on recent storylines, characters, artwork, and any other comic related aspect. Then, comic companies could take this information into account in crafting future stories, ensuring that readers would like the choices being made and thereby increasing, or at least maintaining, readership and sales.
This campaign could be easily implemented across social networks like Facebook, Twitter, or specific message boards that could be created on official company websites so readers could post their opinions. By doing this, readers could feel like they were a part of the comic making process which would result in relationships being formed between the company and the reader.
Of course, great care would have to be taken by the comic companies to ensure that they weren't alienating any customers. They should state specifically that data was being collected and what it was being used for, and then give users the option to opt out of the data collection program in case they were uncomfortable with this. Giving people this choice would reduce the potential problems of data collection and would retain all the people that actually wanted to share their information, bettering the product for everyone involved.
Assuming it's all done correctly, online privacy might actually be beneficial to comic companies. By embracing what people like to post and share online, these companies will be able to incorporate their products into people's identities, thus creating a long and lasting relationship between everyone involved.
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ReplyDeleteI like the way that you kind of did a 180 on the topic and provided the other view point of how it would benefit the comic book industry. These are very creative ways in which the comic book industries can use easily accessible information on the internet to better understand their customers wants and needs. This would there by provide them with greater opportunity to market themselves and acquire a greater following.
ReplyDeleteOh, I wasn't advocating that this data collection be done against our wills. That's absolutely not ok. What I meant was that there would be full disclosure from the companies collecting the data and the users would know exactly what they were getting into. Honestly, I feel like this kind of data exchange would be beneficial to all the parties involved. Comic companies would see an increase in sales, and users would see more of the content they want to see (and less of the bad stuff). There have been quite a few terrible stories from both Marvel and DC recently and I can't help but think that we could have avoided them if our opinions could be heard and taken into account. I would sign up for something like this almost immediately and would tell them, to paraphrase a certain witchy mutant, "No. More. Crossovers."
ReplyDeletewow this is a great idea. I never thought we can use all the information that everybody shares daily to create something. kids disperse information all the time and only for the purpose to get notice, so why not? the fact that the public can have some power in the creation of comics its great!! and only possible because of internet. About identity theft i think yea we need to be careful, but honestly i have met people who are very careful about sharing or posting anything and they still got their identity stolen.
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