Sachendra Y
Interaction Designer / Product Manager / Mobilist / Social Media Enthusiast
Has Social Media changed the rules of the game
Social Media has been compared to Autobahn where there are no rules for speeding, you could actually cause an accident if you drove slow, which is against the socially accepted norm of driving within the speed limit and slow is good. More on link below...
http://sachendra.wordpress.com/2008/06/09/has-social-media-changed-the-rules-of-the-game/
Is this a passing fad or have the rules really changed?
I will make a post about the responses I receive and will publish them in a few weeks for all to see (names are anonymous)
Clarification added June 30, 2008:
Some very thought provoking and interesting responses here. I have created a post on this where I have segregated the arguments FOR and AGAINST the topic to give the reader a balanced view
http://sachendra.wordpress.com/2008/07/01/has-social-media-changed-the-rules-of-the-game-linkedin-responses/
Good Answers (7)
Chris B
VP of Business Development at Vanguard Technology
Best Answers in: Market Research and Definition (1), Blogging (1)
Yes, the rules have changed. The proliferation of social media sites across the Internet is evidence to this, but more so the shift in Web users' mindsets. Users expect to contribute content to their favorite brand's website. We want to create a conversation with people and companies we like (and don't like). We want to be part of the product or service experience.
Companies that are still resistant to this are simply avoiding the inevitable. Anyone can discuss you or your company online now. There are multiple outlets, and this scares some slow-moving people and corporations, yet they do very little to compensate.
I disagree with the other answer that says it is a fad because social media doesn't blend with mobile technology. Almost all social media sites including Facebook, Twitter, BrightKite, Qik, Jott, (the list goes on and on and on) incorporate a mobile component to their experience. That's the point to many of them.
I provide this answer as someone who sells social media technology and writes and speaks about it regularly. It's vital to consider the source when considering your answers on LinkedIn.
I hope this helps. Best of luck.
Kevin H
Total Success Teams / New Eras Media
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The essential rules, build relationships and provide value, have not changed. The vehicle moves faster and empowers more people.
Brennan W
Founder at Pandemic Labs
Best Answers in: Advertising (1), Viral Marketing (1), Change Management (1)
The marketing rules have changed completely.
To keep it very high level, people can get everything they want when they want now. They also can be advertised in a non-invasive, perfectly targeted way. They can be engaged.
Unrelated, but parallel, they can now skip commercials on their TV sets with a Tivo or DVR.
These forces combined = old marketing ideas are dead. People no longer recognize your ability to interrupt what they're doing... since most of what they're doing is totally on demand.
Standard commercials, pre-roll ads, popups, etc. Totally going to move over the next 10 years to a back-seat. They will still exist in some forms, but they won't be serious contenders.
So, marketing is changing 100% and MOST of that change is driven by social media.
Links:
People want to communicate; businesses want to make money. Nothing different there I think. What social media is doing is looking at making these end-points easier to achieve; this is already happening on the first and potentially so on the second. So social media is not really a business objective in its own right, it is an enabler. A very powerful, democratising one, but an enabler still.
Yes it already is changing the rules of the game and I don't think it is a passing fad any more than the phone, or business computing is. Eventually it will become a commodity and will be something that you must do / have in order to operate in business.
Social Media means that at last corporations have to accept that consumers are not passive recipients of brands, but rather active co-producers of brands. Value is no longer something that is frozen into the brands during the production stage, rather it is somthing that is actively shaped by communities which become consumers. Only by actively encouraging dialogue between corporations and communities can brands achieve their full potential The message for the future is clearly that we need to understand how our brands connect with communities, how our brands can add value to communities and then how communities can be involved in the evolution of the brand's value.
Philippe M
Founder & Director at MERKAPT
Best Answers in: Education and Schools (1), Government Contracts (1), Internet Marketing (1), Business Development (1), Sales Techniques (1), Business Analytics (1)
Social medias are the new email. The promise to tap in vast resource of relations and knowledge, in real-time, with perfect targeting and no cost or constraint.
I believe though that for now we live with Linkedin, or others purely professionnal networks, a golden age. Inevitably some forms of spam will appear and penetrates all social medias, thus diminishing dramatically their present appeal. And we already see that appear in more public social medias like Facebook.
We already see other deviations that are a real concern with groups like P&G launching closed social-medias platforms dedicated to their products.
I would say that this is the time to enjoy pro networking sites before they go too mainstream, and loose a lot of their power.
Desiree S
CEO, Bella Web Design, Inc.
Best Answers in: Internet Marketing (2), Web Development (2), Advertising (1), Blogging (1)
You mean there were rules? That's the lovely thing about social media and marketing--its changed the face of business so quickly which pretty much proved there weren't any real steadfast rules to begin with. (Or the so called rules were bogus!) This fad is definitely not passing--I recommend Seth Godin's Meatball Sundae which really explains where its all going.
More Answers (2)
John E. B
Senior Proposal Writer at MorphoTrak
Best Answers in: Blogging (2), Internet Marketing (1), Market Research and Definition (1)
The rules have not really changed. Theoretically everyone is now empowered, but for all practical purposes a few people rise to the top of the heap, just as it was before. Perhaps it's easier to get information today - I don't have to trudge down to the library and open a book in the reference section - but you still need to know what to do with the information you receive.
Oh! they have. Its just a matter of time when Social media will take the driving seat. Unfortunately people, corporates, brands are still to realize and when they do - time lost is money lost, they say.
Its not really about the rules changing in marketing...its just that the power of expression is all set to be utilized to its fullest...and thats lethal...you can either spend time building opinion or changing them...but not doing anything is like approaching a dead end at a high speed with no brakes....
