Social Media is Now Mainstream Media
The rise of social networking websites has been pushing everything else off the main stage. I'm referring to blogs, wiki's, RSS feeds and websites such as YouTube, MySpace, Flickr and now Facebook. These user controlled tools and websites are proliferating the Internet and the way an individual uses the Internet.
Traditional media has been playing a catch up game. They too want a piece of the puzzle. News has shifted from institutional control to consumer control. What we want and when we want it. No one is telling us what to read. We pick what we read.
But what really tells us that social media is changing how we communicate?
Mainstream media is changing how it provides the news to its audience. According to Google Trends, podcast is a highly popular search term. Newspapers and magazines are turning to blogs to reach a new audience. And YouTube is the number one social video sharing website on the internet with 65,000 videos uploaded every day.
This makes me wonder, what else can mainstream media do to grab the attention of the social networking audience?
Get in on the fun!
Canada's Sunsilk branch hired a group of actresses to create a video where a bride turns to bridezila over a bad hair-do. The video Bride Has Massive Hair Wig Out was developed to generate millions of dollars in free publicity for the brand.
Why fool the audience? Is Sunsilk trying to cash in on the highly populated network? Do they actually think this will make you go out and buy their product?
I stumbled on a website, The Consumerist: Shoppers Bite Back, where three companies have been nominated for Best Flog 2006.
The contenders: Wal-Mart for an employee praising her boss.
McDonald's: Promoting the Monopoly game with a video (flog) and another flog written by a Monopoly winner praising how her life changed.
Sony: A flog all about wanting PS3 for Christmas.
And the winner is Sony, who takes the golden poo (yes, an actual poo).
When will marketing firms realize that trying to reach this younger "techy" generation in a "unique" way is not going to work especially if you are found out. It's not cool trying to pretend you are 20-something. Consumers are going to "bite" back and not buy into your marketing scheme. Time to find another means of getting your product exposed. Leave the social networking world alone.
Traditional media has been playing a catch up game. They too want a piece of the puzzle. News has shifted from institutional control to consumer control. What we want and when we want it. No one is telling us what to read. We pick what we read.
But what really tells us that social media is changing how we communicate?
Mainstream media is changing how it provides the news to its audience. According to Google Trends, podcast is a highly popular search term. Newspapers and magazines are turning to blogs to reach a new audience. And YouTube is the number one social video sharing website on the internet with 65,000 videos uploaded every day.
This makes me wonder, what else can mainstream media do to grab the attention of the social networking audience?
Get in on the fun!
Canada's Sunsilk branch hired a group of actresses to create a video where a bride turns to bridezila over a bad hair-do. The video Bride Has Massive Hair Wig Out was developed to generate millions of dollars in free publicity for the brand.
Why fool the audience? Is Sunsilk trying to cash in on the highly populated network? Do they actually think this will make you go out and buy their product?
I stumbled on a website, The Consumerist: Shoppers Bite Back, where three companies have been nominated for Best Flog 2006.
The contenders: Wal-Mart for an employee praising her boss.
McDonald's: Promoting the Monopoly game with a video (flog) and another flog written by a Monopoly winner praising how her life changed.
Sony: A flog all about wanting PS3 for Christmas.
And the winner is Sony, who takes the golden poo (yes, an actual poo).
When will marketing firms realize that trying to reach this younger "techy" generation in a "unique" way is not going to work especially if you are found out. It's not cool trying to pretend you are 20-something. Consumers are going to "bite" back and not buy into your marketing scheme. Time to find another means of getting your product exposed. Leave the social networking world alone.
posted by Anna Kat at 11:21 PM
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