APIs – A Marketer’s Biggest Bang?
A fascinating article by the CEO of The Barbarian Group, a digital marketing agency, speaks to an intriguing notion – that the Application Programming Interface (API) may be the best weapon an Internet marketer has in their arsenal.
Benjamin Palmer points out that the increased linkages and compatibilities between websites and web services is the result of open APIs. In fact, the whole social media scene is, in part, facilitated by the API. In some ways, says Palmer, “Twitter is actually only in the API business.” That’s because , as Palmer states “most of its traffic doesn’t come from anything it owns – it’s all from other apps (desktop or mobile) or through integration with other web applications”.
The reason companies offer developers open APIs is to encourage them to build third-party applications. Developers can be a product’s best friend, as Apple has proven with its iPhone. While the smartphone itself was a technological breakthrough, it wouldn’t have been nearly as popular or valuable if it weren’t for the tens of thousands of applications available through the iPhone App Store. Some developers are making a very nice living simply by bringing iPhone applications to the marketplace.
Of course, developing applications is a big business – and soliciting application ideas from the public is currently in vogue. Witness the Netflix contest to come up with an alternative that could potentially beat the Netflix movie recommendation system called Cinematch. A team of developers did just that and walked away with $1 million last September.
Application development doesn’t have to take place on such a big stage. According to Palmer, every brand can benefit from APIs in two potential ways: a marketer can use “existing APIs to make new brand experiences” or create “something that has its own open API”.
It’s legitimate to ask why a marketer would want to take the time and effort to actually create an open API. Well, think of it as another more sophisticated form of social media. If you create an open API that relates to your product, your product suddenly becomes desirable. Maybe someone will want to incorporate a feature of your product into their own application. Palmer says “…they just use yours and give you some credit. Instead of just trying to connect to other people in one direction, you make something where people are actively trying to connect to you.”
According to Palmer, it’s all about “interdependencies.” APIs leverage what the web was created for in the first place: collaboration. In the end, Palmer says, “…your brand should be trying its hardest to play well with other Internet features and, when possible, make something new that the rest of the Internet wants to play with as well.” And that’s why APIs may give marketers the biggest bang yet for their promotional bucks.
