I recently decided this month for no apparent reason to turn off my Facebook and twitter accounts, lock stock and barrel. I am a 39-year-old digital enthusiast who works within the digital industry and have done since the internet began. I champion digital and social media and consult and assist brands with their digital strategies. So why have I turned against one of the biggest social phenomena’s of the 21st century and are others doing the same?
Digital Generation
Maybe I am just getting older and wiser and appreciate more of my quality time (its valuable after all, I am half way through my life and I don’t want to waste the time I have left looking at trivial stuff that I couldn’t care less about) I’ve gone past the state of being nosey and intruding on peoples lives hoping that I might get noticed, what purpose is it serving knowing that a school friend who I have not seen for 18 years and probably never will has decided to buy a puppy and call it Tyson). Have I decided like the rest of my generation that conversation quality is far better than bite-size quantity, do I want to be engaged with conversation that means something to me, All this seems to lead to me wanting a sense of value from the conversations I crave and we all know that a REAL conversation cannot be held in a series of 144 characters. AND its real conversation I crave.
I want to experience the core characteristics of a conversation and one that a keyboard cannot express, facial expression, sounds and movement are all the finer components and emotions of quality conversation that I value. In a sense I have moved back to my original humanistic values and not let the social phenomenon get in the way, I want the conversations I engage with to create a sense of purpose and value for me alone. I don’t have much time left.
So if I want value, is everybody else wanting the same!!
From some recent research that we undertook with Global Web Index 500, there is a slight decrease in US and no growth in UK, which illustrates saturation within the social platforms. Maybe like me, people jumped onto the bandwagon of social, and now they are realising that it’s about efficiency, appropriacy and creating value. Equally at the same time brands are adopting many other platforms and we have seen an increase in Facebook, Youtube, twitter and corporate blog pages, so what’s going on?
While the number of American and European companies participating in social media remained fairly flat over the past year, in-general, interactivity on social media increased dramatically across all regions, Brands are starting to get the sense of how to leverage social media to manage their brands and engage with stakeholders using relevant channels and more importantly pertinent content. Brands are also dedicating resources to better monitor and manage social media, and they are learning from other companies’ successful strategies.
Most important and back to my earlier point is that brands are starting to see the benefit of ‘humanising’ their social functions something the technology cannot do alone, customer service with a face, expressions, sounds. They are finely realising that there is an emotional context to what they are doing online.
So surely brands like users have started to mature within the social sphere, 92% of tweets and Facebook posts are effectively wet snow, they get viewed in the first hour and then after that disappear into the vast black hole of social content waste. Users have decided that their time is precious and that if you want their attention, give them something of value and something of use but also know when to give it.
So I have learned that people do indeed want their privacy back, they want quality time and they definitely feel a need for quality content via conversations with emotion and expression. I just wonder how long the social digital phenomenon will last and maybe just maybe that when you get to 40 you look at other things that are a little more important and valuable in life and decide that social is not the be all and end all. Maybe brands are also realising this too.
