April 29, 2009
Evolution
Posted in Marketing, Social Media tagged media at 4:23 pm by Kelly Marshall
To start off, take a look at this chart outlining the Evolution of the Social Web.
What does it tell us?
First, that as individuals and as a community, we are social and always will be. Every topic, every brand, every product, every celebrity (who arguably could be called a brand, topic or product) has their own community.
This is important to stores who are looking to add new products – they look at the communities they serve and what is important to them.
Social media (in my opinion) is a direct reaction to this idea. In the early stages, we created profiles to share our personality and interests with the world, hoping others with similar interests would connect with us purely for conversational value. Today, we share videos on YouTube to give out a little piece of ourselves, and what happens underneath these videos? Conversation.
The so-called “Era of Functionality” exists as it does today because we’ve become aware of these conversations and social gatherings and are recognizing that they are good and can be developed and even customized to fit our needs and the needs of consumers.
Down the road (and not far down the road, maybe a few exits away), every business that has a website is not only going to be preached to about the benefits of SEO (search engine optimization) but the necessary steps to building an online social community. I can imagine in 2015 there will be white papers and instructional YouTube videos on generating a Second Life island for your local flower store down the street.
Exciting? Yes.
Intimidating? Yes.
Coming whether you like it or not? Yes.
I propose you start your own conversations soon. People are already talking about you even if you are not aware of it, so joining the discussion can only benefit.
