After reading an article making an interesting paralism between a movie and a web 2.0 symbol, I couldn’t help but to sit and think about it. Web hits are becoming more and more a way for Brands to evaluate a site’s performance. Although true to a certain extent, aren’t the Social Media websites acting towards these results in the same way that the TVs’ effect of creating a public opinion did on their audiences?
Yes and no. In my opinion, Social Media has given birth to a new form of Marketing, specific to each of the Webstartups it’s related to – Digg-Marketing, Reddit-Marketing, etc… – as each has its own specificities. This Marketing, while attractive as a way to add visibility to a Brand, promotes false results as the results that are on top of a page in one day vary, which originates a huge influx of visitors at one moment and a big pitfall in the next. So, in one way, the Social Media websites are shaping the apprehension of the online public opinion to a certain extent. But, there are two variables that differ from the original effect that the TV had – time and interactivity. People might be curious to check a link that is on top in Digg, but the truth is that in the next hour, he’ll be back to check the new number one link, almost forgetting about the original one – information overload syndrome. And there are instant comments – people refute and approve the information in real time, thus shaping and steering information towards a common ground with online audiences.
The bottom line is that Social Media is indeed acting as a opinion shaper, but only towards a certain extent. Yes, it is important for Marketers to acknowledge these tools and their effects, but it isn’t a good strategic pillar to focus on them for pure brand awareness – it will only originate the desired brand awareness if more people actually create links related to the same topic. If it’s a single interesting link, it will definitely create a lot of traffic, but only in a 1 hour maximum time slot.