Why are we talking about social media? Apart from the fact that today’s youth are being referred to as the ‘Facebook generation’ and that 65% of adult Internet users claim to use social media platforms? Social media has altered our interactions within our community and our perceptions of our relationships. It is in our homes, our phones, our language, and our impressions of each other.
Social media is the next revolution. It connects individuals, organizations and communities at a rate and on a scale never before achieved. It gives voice to the timid; it humanizes corporations and creates a whole new meaning to interaction and communication. How we receive and convey information, altered by these new channels has led to the creation of what Social Media specialists are calling the ‘prosumer’ i.e. a producer and consumer of information. With a new role come new abilities and new potentials for accomplishment.
This new potential for communication extends beyond peer-‐to-‐peer interaction. Beyond social circles, shared information and accessibility, with social media have appeared new models and strategies in marketing. Is it a coincidence that the social media revolution presented its appeal at the same time as a state of financial crisis and budget cuts? When the Internet first established itself it became a part of a marketing manager’s budget to implement a website profiling the company’s product or service. Social media has now become a development of that; implementing icons of Facebook, twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn on your website design is now near standard.
Because social media features content from the average Joe to the biggest international brands, i.e. we are all presumers, how we implement our marketing and its priorities are not shared between what you have, and how you share it. Marketing budgets, creative budgets etc. are not as valuable in the world of social media if you are not savvy in how to utilize the platform and its potential reach in your company’s favour. As a result of that, media service providers such as Lostin Media research ways of assisting companies to capitalize on their marketing investments. It has become an industry of its own and one of the fastest ways to convey a strategic message. SME’s and start-‐up companies now set up their social media platforms before they spend any money on marketing. It is affordable, convenient, fast and effective and implemented the right way, almost guaranteed to up the performance in your ROI.
Returning to the point about social media shifting the emphasis from what you have to how you share it, take the example of video content. Apart from video being my primary medium for content creation, video also serves as a prime example of how social media has changed and challenged the nature of marketing. Social media enables you to push your content to its fullest ability. The reach of a word, image or video and the impact it can have can be strategically managed, multiplied, recycled and analyzed and its online lifespan significantly extended to longer than it ever was before.
In this sense, social media evens, to a certain extent, the playing field for competition. It’s not as much about your budgets any more or the technical resources you have, it’s about the strategy of how you use your content. A homemade video can get a significant amount of views compared to professionally produced storyboarded ones when shared with the right people in the right ways on the right platforms.
Strategy, consistency and being proactive are key. Take for example
‘The T-‐ Mobile’s dance’ flash mob concept at Liverpool Street Station, London now peaking at 33,042,462 views on YouTube, 3 years into being watched and shared. On what other platform could a company before get that kind of mileage? And beyond that, spectators at the flash mob event that same day posted their own amateur capture on the same platform indirectly continuing the impact and visibility of the original viral video with no expiry date. Well-‐produced content will compliment a brand. Social media will give it status.
These are exciting times for large enterprises and small businesses alike. Let’s state the obvious: social media is an accessible platform that presents opportunity we are only just beginning to see the benefits of. We are now in a race to discover, strategize and put in action key ways to reap the maximum exposure of your content and benefits of social media.
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Source: Karl Edwards CEO and Managing Director at Lostin Media Studios FZ LLC. http://www.articlesbase.com/technology-articles/social-media-featuring-corporate-5696362.html
