The Great Facerace..
Yesterday, in the world of advertising, brands dealt with consumers. Today brands deal with people. Social media is a medium for people to connect with people. If brands want to successfully coexist in social media with people, they need to play by the people’s rules. In the case of Facebook – There are over 500 million people and 200 languages – ranking 3rd in size after China and India.. Brands and people are investing more time, energy and effort into this property in attempt to gain fans, friends or likes..
Pretty fucking amazing huh..? Yeah, sure.. But what does that mean? Well let’s see..
- Facebook is the largest ad delivery system In the world.
- They now have 200M mobile users.
- They are amassing the largest database of true psychographic and behavioral information ever.
- They established a geo-location based mechanism.
- They established a new form of messaging.
- They created new evolutionary way for humans to communicate.
- Oh, and they did this in six years. Imagine what the future holds..
But in the meantime.. Think about Facebook like a country. The third largest country in the world. Then think about a brand’s pages in other countries as flagship outposts in different states. Each state or territory has it’s own dialect and social conduct. In that place, the people and the culture dictates the rules. The rules are a combination of offline social norms and law as well as the provisions, oversight and enablement of the country’s existence by the governing body of Facebook corporation, led by president/CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Remember this platform is young, on loan and has not even begun to hit puberty yet. Yet, the relationships developed within are real. Pretty dangerous combo if you ask me. Not necessarily too risky, but plenty of risk nonetheless. The future is unknown, and the implications are far from understood let alone just barely observed.
Broadcast is about reach & frequency. The internet is about targetability and measurability. It also is a great medium for human connectivity. The internet makes the world smaller and helps bring people together, through social networking. So when operating in a social setting, try to be human, authentic and real.. Think like a person and not marketer. This is how brands can crack the code in the great FaceRace.
That's Ravin! 