Spending Social Capital Wisely

Social capital is a concept which refers to the amount of influence a person or group has on or in another. Highly connected politicians who are always garnering favors from others have a large supply of social capital within their political circle. Community activists who are consistently involved in their local area have social capital within their community.
Similarly, bloggers and website owners have social capital within their own community of visitors. Every piece of information you provide for free adds a bit of social capital to your brand. Your readers grow to trust you, your opinion, and, hopefully, products you endorse. We see this in all forms of marketing. A child is more likely to beg for a cartoon-branded cereal, because that cartoon has earned social capital by entertaining the child. After the cereal is purchased, it is expected that the cartoon will continue to provide that entertainment.
The child had to see the cartoon repeatedly, maybe over the course of months, before he liked it enough to beg for the cereal. The child also had to know that he could depend on the cartoon afterward to continue to entertain, even if he didn't buy the cereal. In short, the child wants the cereal because he came to trust the cartoon and believes that it wouldn't sell him something he wouldn't like.
Before you market to your readers, you need to earn this trust. Social capital isn't a one-to-one trade. It is something that is spent by marketers after being earned from readers. If you try to cash in before you've earned enough, your readers will lose trust in you; if you sell them something they won't like, they won't trust you again; and if you fail to continue to provide information and entertainment after the sale, they'll stop visiting your site.
When you do ask for a sale, do it in small doses, and only after you've filled a need. It may take months before you have earned enough social capital to make an advertising move. In an age where consumers are always being sold something - TV commercials, magazine ads, or the cartoon on the cereal box - they are always suspicious of advertising.
Readers are a website's most valuable asset. Without them, the site is just another collection of information on the internet. Avid readers can turn it into an ever growing community, and marketers should always be aware of how important they are in the long term. Rather than trying to get the sale as soon as they visit your site, build trust, keep them coming back and provide information that is useful to them. Your brand will profit far more in the long term.