There’s so much talk at the moment about what drives social media.
Some adfolk say it’s about the content.
Others claim it’s about giving a sense of belonging.
Then there’s the people who believe it’s about the level of engagement.
And then there’s the group who proclaim it’s all about interactivity.
Whether you accept those views or not, they tend to be the common themes being banged on about by the ad industry right now.
When you talk to the social media hub brand “owners”, you get a different story.
The people at Wikipedia say it’s about letting people “know everything”.
The folks at Google talk about, “giving access to everything”.
Facebook’s mob love to say it’s about “connecting to everyone”.
Well that’s all well and good but while they’re all busy desperately coming up with ways to attract even more people to their destinations – from building apps to browsers to new tech altogether – it’s worth remembering that their biggest threat to their business is not the folk in Silicon Valley, but the people who power Silicon Valley and the rest of the World put together … the electricity companies.
So if I was Google and I wanted to ensure I always had a huge amount of cash coming through my doors, I wouldn’t purely rely on the ad revenues I get from my search products or the fees I get from the Android devices being sold, I’d go out and buy a power company because even if overnight people dropped me for Microsoft or Apple or Facebook or some company that’s not started yet but will become the talk of the town within 3 month … I’d still have shitloads of cash pouring in to my business and I’d be able to do it without wasting another cent on mistakes like Google Wave, Buzz or Answers.
The industry might love to talk about how many people want an iPhone 5 or visit Facebook, but the real power behind social media are the companies who power the whole thing … so don’t fall into the trap of only following the category, look a bit deeper and a bit broader and you might find out that the people your brand really needs to keep an eye on are the people who have nothing to do with your category at all.
[You can have this on me George!]