Sean,

I think a lot of clients sit on the side lines until they see if something starts to scale. They jumped on Facebook AFTER it got huge. A few were there early, but not many.  Same with Twitter and Foursquare.  Though now, seeing the proliferation of platforms, more and more brands are at least wiling to think about getting in early.  The challenge, of course, is that many marketers look at social media and the platforms as just that, a medium. So when it's worth their time, when it offers scale, when they can reach a lot of people they get interested.  We are trying to educate more clients not to think that way but rather to start with the relationships they want to build, the consumer habits that matter in relationship to tech, media, content and community, and then develop programs that way.  It may or may not call for a new platform or emerging media.  Finally, there are so many -- Placecast, apps, iAds, games, geo, etc. -- that brands and marketers have to make decisions not only about allocation of time and resources, but about how fragmented their digital eco-system can become.  Give a microsite became give me a facebook/twitter/app and now marketers are realizing they have quite a non unified mess on their hands.

Standard technology adoption curves apply to marketing as well as any thing else. There are a few key questions that seem to drive decisions about adopting emerging technology.This isn't a definitive list, but it's a start.

1. Number one: Has your target audience adopted the technology, or if not, have key influencers and tastemakers adopted it?
2. Does your brand get credibility or gain a strategic advantage from being an early adopter? Not all brands or categories place a premium on being on top of the hottest trends.
3. Do you have resources and risk tolerance for investing in unproven media? Many brands want a proven model and a high likelihood of ROI before making an investment. Obviously, by the time something has proven ROI, it probably no longer qualifies as an emerging media.

For brands that rely on social currency or innovation, investing early in emerging media may make sense. For many mainstream brands, however, waiting for emerging media to become proven media is a better strategy. It's not as fun, but it works for a lot of brands.

Hi Sean.

You've got some great replies already with fantastic advice. It is such an interesting question because it varies so widely from client to client and agency to agency. I think our view is that emerging channels have become so important and have demonstrated such tremendous ROI that they demand to be a core part of the marketing plan. It’s easy to fall into the trap of ignoring a channel or opportunity because it has small reach and correspondingly small budgets. But often, it’s not about the reach or the dollars – it’s about the power of the ideas and programs that emerging media enable. Or it’s about identifying channels and opportunities early on, and conducting smart, disciplined test-and-learn programs that yield solid results now, but more importantly put your brand in the driver’s seat once a channel begins to take off. Some of this stuff requires new machinery to fully execute/capitalize on the opportunity, and it is damn hard to be building the machine while trying to drive it at the same time. Mobile is a fantastic example - those brands that began experimentation early on are now reaping the rewards; they're miles ahead of their competition and have built real businesses from what once may have seemed to be an "emerging" channel.

I'm a huge hockey fan, so I can't help but leave you with a clichéd but appropriate Gretsky quote: “A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.” 

Lastly, for more insight, note that I co-authored a piece along these lines for our Outlook Report published earlier this year.