We had legacy media (print and television) ruling the roost in terms of reach, influence and the power to change perceptions.
They still do.
We had brands using the reach of legacy media to be visible among the masses.
They still do.
Brands chose to place themselves in front of people, via legacy media, through paid spots (advertising) and earned spots (public relations).
They still do.
And then internet happened. It subsequently led to people talking among themselves in massively networked ways. These networks are clustered, distributed and just all over the place. So, they don’t challenge legacy media individually. Collectively, it is a different story altogether.
Brands started by doing what they did with legacy media – pay their way to get visibility and reach out in tentative, rudimentary ways to earn visibility.
The awareness is dawning on brands slowly, but steadily, only now. They realize now that this is perhaps not the best way to make use of social media.
Why?
Because, with legacy media, they were referring to people in clusters. The individuals were mostly faceless.
Social media allows brands to put a face to that individual and not treat him/her as a cluster or just a demographic.
The key there is the word ‘allows’; and that does not mean brands are doing it, will do it or need to do it.
Only, if they do it, it can work wonders.
Postscript:
But again, ‘scaling’ is a question that closely trails ‘allows’ – so, ‘can it be scaled at all?’, seems to be the topical question.
Well, back when telephones were invented, we had one telephone operator managing all incoming calls. When a lot of people started owning telephones, brands thought that it would be a great way to use this tool for assorted corporate communications…customer service, being one of them since it saves time for the company personnel while personally attend to people’s queries.
So, they hired more people to handle the phone calls. Not because it was cool; but only because it was the only way to scale. They added rules to it, given the fact that it is a human behind the phone – so, phone lines were first given specific time schedules for operation. Then, they invented the shift system to manage the phone lines round the clock.
But, the phone was a one-to-one communication medium, while social media is a many-to-many medium.
If scaling a one-to-one communication medium demanded training people on how to speak on the phone, on what to say and increased investment in building a team to handle the phone lines, why shouldn’t the same be done for a far more public, disruptive, many-to-many medium? The rules, after all, remain the same – people need to trained on how to speak in public; they need to be trained on how to handle queries/complaints in public; and most importantly, organizations need more people to handle more buzz in public.
Scaling cannot happen with automation. It works for very, very specific purposes in legacy tools like the telephone – automated calls can only help so much; websites have taken that place now. Scaling, when humans are involved on the other side and when humans are watching the conversation, cannot be automated or trivialized.
This is not broadcast media. You could use it as broadcast media, but then people will behave the same way as they behave with broadcast media – as mute spectators. To unmute them, you need to engage. And scale the engagement.