Today’s sophisticated listening tools and online content monitoring systems capture and decipher in seconds real-time chatter and engagement metrics across Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms. Brand guardians analyse this data to deduce conclusions pertaining to perceptions people around the world have of them and their products.
Technology has transformed chatter into something of potentially incalculable value; consumer insights which come directly from consumers’ mouths or, to be more precise, straight from their social media accounts. Uncensored and unvetted, impulsive and emotional ‘Likes’ and ‘Dislikes’ of the very people marketers vie to attract. Pure gold!
Or is it?
According to a recent study, robots, not humans, fake 23 per cent of web video ad views. Computers being remotely operated by hackers account for almost one in four views of digital video ads worldwide, according to a study that estimates such fraud will cost advertisers $6.3 billion (Dh23.13 billion) in 2015.
Also, according to a another recent report brands’ Facebook and Twitter posts only reach around 2 per cent of their fans and followers, and less than 0.1 per cent of fans and followers actually interact with each post on average.
What’s more, Facebook’s latest tweak to its news feed algorithm means that as of January 1, brands’ unpaid posts are actually seen by even less users as the social media behemoth has publicly admitted that brands posting promotional content “will see a significant decrease in distribution”.
So is “social” losing some steam?
If ‘Social Media’ were a football player for ‘Team Marketing’ at the 2010 World Cup, I would describe him like Cristiano Ronaldo — young, fast-paced, sexy, with a versatile repertoire and millions of followers worldwide. He is also incredibly arrogant believing that he is the best compared with the rest of his teammates and a tad immature especially when the connection is slow.
Fast forward to Fifa 2022 Qatar World Cup — Social Media will still be part of Team Marketing, albeit with some tired legs and diminishing popularity. As the lines between online and offline continued to blur, he lost some of his relevance and became rather confused and disoriented. Yet, he managed to reinvent himself through different platforms and variations helping him maintain a core fan base, however disparate in nature.
That pretty much sums up the journey of social media, its rise and fall in the marketing mix pecking order.
But before the inevitable gradual degradation begins, social media will continue to be influential as companies the world over have jumped on the social media bandwagon to develop integrated campaigns that appeal to the billions of social media users. Brands have become more globally relevant than ever before as they can now talk directly and in real-time to almost everyone in this planet who’d lend an eager ear to listen or rather anyone with an internet connection and the right hash tag.
PR, digital and other communication specialists have also become a lot more social media savvy and should now work together and in unison more than ever before to provide clients holistic integrated communications solutions to satisfy the current yearn for social.
This is not only important as an enabler to produce results-driven campaigns that are strategically solid and effective but it is a matter of survival in the fast-changing communications industry. Social media sits right at the middle, but instead of dividing opinions as to who is its rightful owner it can serve as a catalyst for authentic integration between the disparate marketing disciplines to the benefit of agencies, clients and consumers.
The closer disparate marketing functions gather around social media campaigns, the quicker they will start understanding each other. But as long as social stays king, selfless collaboration will continue to lag.
Ironically, once social media’s hypnotic power starts waning, the advertising industry stands a real chance for actual and seamless integration.
CREDIT: The writer is Head of PR and Social Media at Al-Futtaim Group and author of ‘Back to the Future of Marketing — PRovolve or Perish’.
