In the overcrowded world of marketers, social media “experts”, consultants, thought leaders and everyone else encouraging us to join the conversation . . . I have to ask, does anyone care?
We like to think they do, but most likely, they don’t. There is too much information, too fast, and too often. You can hardly keep up as it is. So why would someone want to take the time to listen to you? Are you listening to them? Probably not. There’s no time even if you wanted to.We’ve developed into a society exposed to a tsunami of information. It’s everywhere you turn and it is impossible to keep up.
The activity of just watching it all go by has become the sport itself. While the spectators are the majority, there’s a hell of a lot of players in the game as well.
Technology has allowed every single person the ability to broadcast at will. Whether it is pictures snapped at a concert and immediately posted to Instagram; or someone’s daily musings posted to their blog or facebook feed; we’ve all become content producers. And we’re producing mountains of it.
The Superbowl this year generated 24.1 million tweets alone. Nearly every commercial had a corresponding hashtag and brands were chomping at the bit to get you to tweet about them as well. Some found success, like Oreo, by reacting quickly to the loss of power during the game.
On the Grammys, host LL Cool J was referring to artists not by their names but by their names as hashtags, and incessantly encouraging tweeting during the whole show. The fight for even a second of our attention has turned into a battle of epic proportions.
While you watch tv, there are ads for more tv shows flashing along the bottom. But you’re probably too busy tweeting to notice that. So maybe you’ll catch the hashtag just mentioned before the commercial break. Just to be sure, they’ll email you as well so you can check that on your tablet as you update your status indicating that there’s nothing on tv tonight.
As we are all publishers, photographers, and broadcasters now, we have to ask ourselves, does anyone care? Is what we’re blogging, posting, sharing and tweeting adding value or is it just more noise?
Sources:
- http://mashable.com/2013/02/04/super-bowl-twitter/
- http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/168214-hashtag-everything-the-2013-grammy-awards/
- http://thisweekin.com/thisweekin-social-media/the-information-tsunami-on-this-week-in-social-media-07/
About Tommy Spero
Tommy Spero ( @tommyspero ) is the Principal and Creative Director of Soul NYC (www.soulnyc.com) , a branding, web design and inbound marketing agency that helps companies large and small use design and technology to grow their businesses. Tommy drives the vision of the agency, with over 14 years working in the design and interactive space. His experience working with some of the worlds biggest companies, like American Greetings, Sony Music, VH1, Showtime and Novartis, gives him unique insight on how small and medium businesses can succeed through the use of branding and technology. His design work has been featured multiple times in the LogoLounge series of books by Rockport Press, as well as appearing on television and all across the web.
