I had
the pleasure of spending four eye-opening days in Los Angeles last weekend. It
wasn’t the city that opened my eyes, though; it was the company. I spent four days with seven other ladies,
the least I’ve known for 15 years, and the most I’ve known for 35 years. But that’s another, separate, and glorious,
story.
These
women rigidly extracted me from my days of face-in-a-computer, achieve-achieve-achieve
planning, anxiety inducing presentations, and interpersonal collaboration
challenges to remind me of the things that actually matter to the majority of
the world. I might have lost sight of
that a little in the myopia of my day-to-day.
But
this is a post about Social Media, so what’s the relationship?
Social
Media has dominated conversation, particularly amongst marketing, advertising
and communications types for at least the last five years. Zuckerberg paved the path with his arrival on
the scene via Facebook, believe it or not less than ten years ago. Since then, there’s been an animated fixation
on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, Path, Rdio, Spotify, and
the lengthy list goes on.
Without
question, there have been the monarchic players in the kingdom of social media,
namely King Facebook, Queen Twitter, Prince LinkedIn, Lord Instagram and
Duchess Pinterest, which arrived like Princess Diana with a flourish only
recently.
But
let’s pause and take the airplane perspective here for just a moment: who
drives use, growth and success of these social media platforms?
Many social
media platforms have thrived off the buzz created by media and niche users in
the marketing, advertising and communications fields, but I contend that the
future belongs to those platforms who can deliver impenetrable value to the
mass of users – people like those seven women I mentioned earlier.
I have
noticed a ghost-town-ization (Robert Scoble, 2012) of some social media of late. Twitter is much
quieter. In contrast, it seems Facebook
is a little bit more active. Pinterest
took off like a lightening bolt, compeling the Martha Stewart inside millions
of citizens to share loveliness.
LinkedIn retains a steady level of importance in its singularity as a
valuable professional networking tool.
And Instagram, well, we can only pontificate, but without the
acquisition by Facebook, Instagram probably would’ve run through the consumer
adoption cycle in record time and landed in the history books along with
MySpace. Can we call Path a success? Soundcloud? Google+? Foursquare? Debatable
on all counts, I think.
So
what’s with the ghost-town-ization of some social media; is it real? I think
so, and I think it plays right back to the eye-opening four days I recently
spent in Los Angeles. What matters to the
masses of people that social media needs to work for is their lives. The health
and happiness of self and other loved ones, and the other essential part of the
masses lives, their work.
It
seems to me that the ghost-town-ization of some social media is because people
really just want to get back to life, life as characterized by Love and Work
(Freud was right).
And so,
as people tire from too many options and too little time, and just want to get
back to life, only the social media platforms that recognize this and create a
sustainable, distinct and useful place in these people’s lives will prevail.
The
ONLY social media platform the seven women I was with peeked in on was
Facebook, because it is there that they can check in on their ‘life’ with their
loved ones.
LinkedIn
has its place in the future as the most useful professional networking service,
to help people be successful in that as-yet-irreplaceable part of life called
Work.
Instagram
has wisely been acquired and will now become a natural part of the already
entrenched Facebook, to bring a new level of texture to getting back to life.
I fear Twitter
is hitting a rough patch…that it needs to uncover its value in this reality of settling
priorities. It has never been the
go-to-platform to connect with those you care about; again, that’s Facebook. It
is at current quite simply trying to play too many diverse roles as: a) a
location and means for information-sharing, largely professionally related, b)
a channel for self-promotion, c) a weak social community, d) an entertainment
channel, and e) a photo posting tool. Some
of those services have the opportunity for a distinct place in the part of life
called Work; some are simply second-rate to Facebook. So what can Twitter be in this world where
people just want to get back to their lives of love and work?
I
believe the ghost-town-ization is real, that people are exiting social media in
time spent, and in investment level.
They are getting back to life, to love and to work. Its role is moving from faddish growth to converged
value. The social media platforms that
survive will need to define and deliver meaningful value in people’s lives, by
either supporting that which they love or their work. And only a few will win.
Hopefully
the title of this post wasn’t misunderstood. There is life after social media; it
looks a whole lot like the life we’ve always known.
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