A central feature of many forms of social networking sites is the ability to create a profile. Creating a profile requires a form of self-reflection: which side of you do you want to portray? Which photos of you would best support this portrayal, and what kind of content must you create? The answers to both of these questions depend on your audience. If you’re broadcasting to your friends, you may be more comfortable sharing silly photos and revealing your personal thoughts and beliefs. If you’re broadcasting yourself to potential employers, you may prefer to uphold a more professional image; your photos probably won’t be of you mimicking the white-girl-pose with your friend and your status probably won’t be a mini rant on the barista who messed up your Starbucks order. It’s a good thing there are different social networking sites that cater to the different sectors of our lives.
In his article "Why Mainstream Social Networks Complicate Our Identities", Beckland discusses Google+ and why its attempt to consolidate all our social networking through its 'circle' feature doesn't mesh well with the variety of relationships we have with others. He argues that an eclectic feed composed of all the individuals we connect with is frustrating and confusing, because it requires us to mentally sift through content that comes from different parts of our lives. However, Beckland's argument is only concerned with the complications that arise when users consume content from many sources. I believe that social networking sites allow users temporary escape. When you have a bad day at work, you may want to express these frustrations to your personal friends and find ways to forget about the workplace temporarily. These desires would be difficult to satisfy if your social networking sites meshed your personal and professional lives. Seeing your boss’s face on the homepage while you write your mini-rant status update may make the experience less stress-relieving than you’d like.
I, personally, am glad that there are so many different social networking websites, each with its own dynamic and niche. Collectively, they allow me to comfortably express different parts of my personality. I like that I can get on Facebook and share silly photos and thoughts with the comfort of knowing* that I can still maintain my professional and academic side that teachers and administrators are familiar with. I like that I can get on LinkedIn and share my professional and academic experiences without the judgment of my peers, who I know in a different context. I like that I can get on Tumblr and express my intimate thoughts with an audience that I don't necessarily know in real life. If these social networking sites converged, I would feel restricted in my ability to express myself.
Beckland concludes that the myriad of social networking sites allow marketers to gain a "more nuanced, unified understanding of their customers." I agree with these sentiments. With so many different social networking sites serving as outlets for different parts of our personality, we're essentially creating a scavenger hunt for marketers, who must find and piece together different parts of us. While this scavenger hunt may overwhelm marketers, it actually provides them a better understanding of their consumers. Distinct social networking sites that handle distinct parts of our lives facilitate more self expression. More self expression equals more insight into the personalities of individuals and their wants, needs, and frustrations. The varied landscape of social networking sites is beneficial to both users and marketers. With that being said, in the interest of time, is there a particular social networking site that marketers should target first? If so, which? This article thinks Twitter's the one. Maybe we should take the marketer's ambitions and goals into consideration - do you think different social networking sites cater better to different marketers?
* after last week's material on privacy, I don't know if this is something I know
Beckland concludes that the myriad of social networking sites allow marketers to gain a "more nuanced, unified understanding of their customers." I agree with these sentiments. With so many different social networking sites serving as outlets for different parts of our personality, we're essentially creating a scavenger hunt for marketers, who must find and piece together different parts of us. While this scavenger hunt may overwhelm marketers, it actually provides them a better understanding of their consumers. Distinct social networking sites that handle distinct parts of our lives facilitate more self expression. More self expression equals more insight into the personalities of individuals and their wants, needs, and frustrations. The varied landscape of social networking sites is beneficial to both users and marketers. With that being said, in the interest of time, is there a particular social networking site that marketers should target first? If so, which? This article thinks Twitter's the one. Maybe we should take the marketer's ambitions and goals into consideration - do you think different social networking sites cater better to different marketers?
* after last week's material on privacy, I don't know if this is something I know
You pose an interesting question, what sites do you think marketers should target first. I think that the article is correct when it says that Twitter is the answer. Twitter has the most simplified format. Twitter users tweet about everything. From sports to disappointing coffee orders. There is also the prevalent use of hash tags. All a marketer has to do is type in a hash tag about their product or a competitors and immediately they get dozens of users responses without have to lift more than a few fingers. There is also the benefit that most twitter users do not have their twitter set to private. Making twitter a much easier social network to navigate, as opposed to a site like Facebook. I think then next site that marketers should look into is Pinterest. Granted this too would be a little bit more difficult to navigate, but it would be highly beneficial to any marketers that want to target a specific audience. Each user of Pinterest has their likes filed away into sub-categories or board. Let’s say a marketer wanted to make an ad campaign targeted towards teenage girls. That marketer could look up a teenage girl’s Pinterest and find her favorite foods, clothes, movies, even where she would like to travel to. This is all based off her Pinterst boards. I think that Pinterest is the next best avenue for marketing research.
ReplyDeleteWhile I do agree with you both that sites like Twitter and Pinterest are excellent places for marketing strategists to fine tune their techniques, I think that this could quickly turn into a dangerous trend. I personally don't usually want to be bombarded with ads when using social media. I use social media as an outlet for my social life online, to talk to friends and family, find articles and other media to explore as suggested/posted by my friends, but it seems like as I scroll through my Facebook newsfeed, I'm seeing an unwanted ad between every handful of my friends' posts. It's already been the case for years that you can't watch 30 minutes of television without sitting through eight minutes of ads. Non-social media websites have given space to advertisers for years, so now every time I try to navigate an article or news story online, it's surrounded by ads on both sides, and sometimes covered in pop-ups. And now they're unavoidable when I'm just cruising through Facebook. Why does everything need to part of the advertising machine? Companies will always find new ways to push products that no one actually needs onto unwitting consumers, and as they get better at it, our life experiences are being dumbed down and transformed into nothing more than a receipt, a "proof of purchase" card. Call me old fashioned, but I would like to see advertisers dial it back a bit, not find more nooks and crannies in our on- and off-line lives to appear in and try to sell me something else.
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