Social Media, where Big Brother is your best buddy
Who would have ever thought that Big Brother was in fact, Big Ego?
These days, the Orwellian future is coming to life in the face of Freud. It is not a secret government agency tracking and monitoring your every move, it is the general public instead. Individuals are willingly, enthusiastically, opening themselves up to the powers of the internet to expose their lives in ways that were unimaginable 40 years ago. This shock is not born in a technological sense, but from a social conscious perspective. Social media's reach is growing its tentacles into every outlet, even in these brutal economic times.
Individuals are documenting their lives in ways once considered inconceivable and carrying the most casual of acquaintances along for the ride. Gone are the days of losing touch with that friend from 15 years ago. Now, there are loads of technological devices used to find out where they are and what they are doing.
Facebook has more than 175 million active users and is growing rapidly, LinkedIn had 11.9 million unique visitors last September alone, and Twitter posts that mention a company's name are ranking highly on company searches within Google.
Google's Latitude has taken this to yet another level, allowing an individual to tag their cell phone and provide their latest location to be broadcast through Google Maps. Now it's not just an updated face in the profile, but a real time update on their location and their activities. With just a simple click, an individual opens themselves up to the entire world with the minimal effort of a few keystrokes. Instant contact through SMS, email, or Google Talk is easily available.
Sure, the privacy critics are already out…but is anyone really listening to them?
Users are well aware of how public their information is and yet there seems to be an acceptance of this fact, despite the very personal nature of the accounts. I recently did a Google search on a company of interest, only to find an industry colleague's twitter log. No log-in or Twitter account of my own was required to have full access to every Tweet from that user.
The numbers in terms of adoption are self-evident, but what is more intriguing, is how innovation in technology is feeding into today's social conscious profile. Twitter recently received $35 million in venture capital as it explores new ways to leverage its technology commercially. In this economic drought, could there be a more powerful statement of social media's power?
Well, unfortunately spam is another powerful validation and its presence has been made clear. Web strategist, Jeremiah Owyang, discovered this particular problem when a spammer used variations of his twitter account to phish out a traditional Get Rich Quick scam.
The point is, modern society has relaxed the privacy barriers both technologically and socially, developing a strikingly high comfort level between personal information and publication.. Orwell tapped into fear from a time where an individuals' political association could get them hauled into jail, or at the very least, before congress to find out if they were a communist. Privacy was not only an issue from a personal preference standpoint, but to avoid being unfairly tagged with major life consequences.
Future generations never dealt with that environment. Electronic media exploded a variety of opinions. Differences in thought—however extreme— grew to be considered potentially unsavory but not punishable. Generations that grew up with computers have an inherent trust in technology, spawned from their first interactions in early childhood. Statistics overwhelmingly validate that the younger the individual, the more comfortable they are when engaging in user-generated content.
With users in the high school range eagerly logging their lives online, there is no longer a key that protects the old fashioned pen-and-paper diary. It's electronic, it's easily accessible and permanent, and it's open to everyone. Why? Because the younger the individual, the more reliant on electronic communication the user can be expected to be.
From a marketing perspective, this means less about defining a channel publisher and more about understanding the communication medium. Mastery of the social channel is complex, and in an industry that has long placed primacy on control of the message, the challenge is complex. But, it is an education well worth it, as brands will need to be prepared to both promote and defend itself in the coming decade.