Social Media is Changing the World - Advertisers Need to Pay Attention!

 

To conclude the running theme throughout this blog, I have decided to focus this final blog post on the effects Social Media is having on the world, and thus it's affect on Advertising. 

Erik Qualman (2010), author of Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we live and do business, created this short video comprising some 'mind-blowing' statistics about social media.

I think the most astounding fact in this video is about how long each medium took to reach 50 million users; 

• Radio = 38yrs
• TV = 13yrs
• Internet = 4yrs
• IPod = 3yrs
• and Facebook alone took less than a year to reach 200 million users!

Social media has very quickly become an integrated part of our everyday lives; it has changed the way we communicate, our attitude towards things, and even our culture. 

Social Media has affected how we consume the media

Remember the days before Social Media, even before the Internet. The days when we watched television on a TV, and listened to radio shows through a radio. Each medium had it's own separate media vehicle. 

Well, not anymore. People are using the Internet for a whole range of things. 

Take news for example. The traditional method of receiving information about current events was Newspapers and Television News broadcasts. But in today's digital age the way to be up-to-date is online. 

"The drivers of online news include technology, changing media use, new business models and new Internet intermediaries, and social factors such as increased mobility and participation in the creation of online content." (OECD, 2010)

Whats more Social Media has become a prominent part of online news. "More Americans get their news from the Internet than from newspapers or radio, and three-fourths say they hear of news via e-mail or updates on social media sites." (Gross, 2010) "We no longer search for the news; rather, the news finds us." (Qualman, 2009) 


If society continues to use the Internet in this way, will everything end up online. Will it mark the end for newspapers? I believe it will, and newspaper companies need to drastically rethink their business plans to incorporate online in preparation for when (not if) newspapers are no longer needed. 


Print Advertising, however, is not dead; not yet anyway. It has it's audience (generally an older audience), and it continues to be a successful means for reaching them. But the future for print advertising is limited, and with the next generation being extremely digitally savvy; online will one day take over.

" Members of Generation Y grew up with the Internet and personal computing technology. Because of this experience, they are called 'digital natives' " (Knoll Inc, 2010)

Social Media is affecting the Media Landscape

The media industry as we know it is run by men, and thus largely consists of masculine ideology.

 "Since the 1960s, feminists have argued that 'it matters who makes it'. When it comes to the mass media, 'who makes it' continues to be men" (Media Awareness Network, 2010)

The users of Social Media, however, are predominantly female.

So if online is the new offline media, and social media is dominating online, and women are ruling social media...

ARE WOMEN NOW IN CONTROL OF THE MEDIA?

Johanna Blakley muses on this idea in her TED talk; Social Media and the end of gender. 

"[Women] truly dominate the social media space, which is a space that's having huge impact on old media. The question is what is this impact going to have on our culture? And what is it going to mean for women? " (Blakley, 2011)

There is the potential for the whole media industry to be altered as a result of the growth of Social Media. Personally, I am excited for this change (Should it happen). 

So what affect would this have on the advertising industry? With digital advertising becoming increasingly popular, and women being leading this online revolution; the first change would probably be more advertising being targeted at women. This could mean more advertising starring women, or more advertising using a more female ideology. As for the industry itself, it could potentially result in the hiring of more women in the advertising industry, and even more female media owners. 

Social Media is changing our Culture


Susan Greenfield thinks that social networking is turning us into babies, shrinking our attention spans, our ability to empathize, and eroding our identity. (Laurie, 2010) Vincent Nichols, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, recently suggested that social networking causes increasingly “transient relationships,” is “dehumanising” community life and, as a consequence, we are “losing social skills.” (Daily Mail, 2009; Laurie, 2010)


I don't think this could be any further from the truth. Yes, Social Media perhaps produces some less than desirable qualities, but in my opinion the positives greatly outweigh the negatives. 


We have become incredibly social; we are interacting with family, friends, people we only know a little, people we don't know at all; and it is creating a very open, sharing atmosphere. It has also made us lazy, and impatient. As mentioned before we don't actively search for the media any more (particularly news), we wait for it to find us.


Advertisers need to take notice of this change, and implement their strategies accordingly. Consumers are no longer making the effort; brands are having to do all the work to establish themselves within the consumers lives; just putting your brand online isn't good enough. As a result, more precise and accurate research will have to be carried out to ensure that the campaign is successful, as there is an increased risk of it not being seen at all.

Social Media has taken the world by storm; and it is greatly affecting the advertising industry. It hasn't only changed the media environment, but it has also begun to alter culture itself; encouraging an open, social society. Whether it is a positive or negative thing is personal to each of us, but there's one thing for certain; there's no going back now!