While the relatively new industry of Social Media pushes forward in the marketplace for progressive businesses, many companies still have yet to capture its enormous importance. The peculiarity of the sector is that unlike many business concepts, as “textbook” is written, much of it is already obsolete. Though that may baffle business leaders intending to stay abreast of the concern, given technological changes, public habits, as well as the present topical issue of privacy, this must be expected. Social media platforms face a future of changing consumer loyalty and businesses must understand the speed in which the market evolves. Business managers must adopt a plan that merges both online and offline content but in a variety of different tactics and mediums in overall brand development.

The once street feel of Facebook has all but disappeared as the frontier days of 2005 where you could sense a pulsing base beat of trends has been replaced with endless applications, multi-tiered selling tactics and rapidly aging population. The sheer volume of groups and pages, of which users have chosen to casually “like” have turned Facebook into a “tire-kicker’s” shopping mall, where they stroll by stores but never pull out the bill-fold and in many cases echo the voyeuristic problems that crippled MySpace. While it boasts a vast membership base, social media campaigns need to be cautioned that it is not an issue of simply running out your product but finding a route for regular interaction within your desired market and equally ensuring you are positioned correctly.

Twitter has its own unique set of concerns but diametrically the opposite of common marketing approaches and in many ways more of a brand awareness tool to facilitate the next step in the selling equation. The portal offers a youthful zeal, with speed of information and in combination with a natural private barrier allows for the building of a brand but in the bite-sized morsel. The hurdle for business to understand is by the sheer size of “followers” your reader is inundated with “tweets” and needs a hook that leads them to content or landing page within a small timeframe. While there are weaknesses to this platform, it offers a tremendous method of pushing information quickly into the market, leading them to your website. Twitter is not an answer on its own but rather an integral component for well-informed businesses to get their message out and begin the marketing cycle.

Shining brightly in the horizon is Tumblr, a subtle star in the Social Media sky. Boasting ease of use and engaging, the fresh faced blogging platform offers users a visual experience and at this stage, has maintained its edge that screams branding opportunity. The youthful energy rolls through Tumblr low and hard and works perfectly in the overall branding experience and needs to be recognized by businesses quickly.

Prepared by J. Davies
©Helix World Media, 2010.
All rights reserved

On Tuesday, organizers of the upcoming London 2012 Olympics unveiled their mascots, two lovable characters “Wenlock and Mandeville“. As we would learn in the animated introduction that was reminiscent of the noted Children’s series “Thomas and Friends” from the 1980’s, they were forged from the last drops of steel used for the construction of the Olympic stadium and later re-tooled as a loving present by retiring worker, “George”, to his grandchildren.

A delightful tale, that went off the charts by any focus group of the intended viewers. Alas, poor “Wenlock and Mandeville” have not been treated so kind by the mainstream media but in an amusing turn of events, says a great deal of how far off course much of the business community is in understanding the present-day evolution in connectivity.

As per the Telegraph, Stephen Bayley, design critic firmly establishes the lack of touch with the present day as following his scathing review of the lovable duo, complains that they are, “appalling computerised Smurfs for the iPhone generation”.

While the “Smurfs” hit their heyday in the early 1980’s, with a modest revival in the following decade, making the notation a tagline for the generation looking to comfortable shoes and affordable prescriptions, comments such as these, sting with the inability to understand society is in the midst of the next phase of the Digital Revolution. Call it evolution or revolution but over the last decade the pace of change has pushed into top gear and those not realizing this, are left behind talking of, well pop culture icons thirty years past.

Equally, the “iPhone” generation comment is not only well off course in this situation but has the same residue that is fouling social media titan Facebook. With the latter, that now boasts its user base is growing exponentially; its largest growth demographic is women over the age of fifty-five. One very crucial point to remember in product launches, is should a new product get into the “wrong hands” and be associated outside of the intended market, it might never recover. While Facebook, whose success is based upon a pre 2005 paradigm, frets over public outcry on privacy that might be its greatest flaw. Facebook’s present demographics is a recipe to have your product, that tight new design, jettisoned into the wrong hands and killed off quickly before it ever gets a chance. With its now ever-present agricultural mayhem and other application’s it has lost its sex appeal fast and a product launch nightmare. With the power of the modern social media web, companies must now be wary that the wrong product placement will crush the launch straight out of the gate.

The evolution of the digital revolution is pushing quickly into an era, where product placement is at an entirely new level of visibility. The wrong move and your product could be associated out of its intended market and relegated to the discount aisle before it had a chance. The future of Social Media is reliant upon forward thinking and not rooted in the past and for that, the London Games have hit the target.

Prepared by J. Davies
©Helix World Media, 2010.
All rights reserved