State of the social media sphere address
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Things change quickly in Interwebs land. Here’s what you need to know so you can look knowledgeable and sound educated in front of the people who presume you know a lot about all this sort of stuff because you’re in marketing and it’s your job to know these things. Call it a ‘State of the social media sphere’ address if you will.
Suddenly got cool and popular. The micro-blogging service has been sitting there doing its thing for a couple of years. Web/blog nerds have been using it to talk to each other since its inception but the consensus of the general public was that they didn’t quite get it or see the point. “So, it’s like a Facebook status update yeah?” was the catchcry. “And if I’ve already got a Facebook status update, why would I need to have a Twitter? I don’t care what millions of random people are doing every second of the day, I have enough trouble following my friends.”
And that was pretty much it. But what the detractors didn’t realise was that celebrities had started tweeting en mass. No one does give a flying proverbial about what millions of random people are doing every second of the day, but plenty of people care what celebs are up to. Rather than relying on the gossip mags for antic updates, fans can now get the word straight from the horses mouths. British songstress Lily Allen declared on Rove Live that she was an avid fan, US basketball star Shaquille O’Neal caused a stir when he started using Twitter to broadcast his location and meet fans, and proving that even at government level the service is being taken seriously, South Australian Premier chose Twitter as the medium to announce a State Election.
On the other hand, have been in the shit recently. A few weeks ago they updated their terms of service without much warning and basically said that they owned everyone’s soul. Most of their 175 million users wanted their souls back, and Facebook were forced to revert back to the old terms and conditions, which only allowed them visiting rights on Sundays, but meant they could still put everyone’s baby photos on the moon. The network then did what any 20-year-old professional social media strategist consultant executive advisor would have advised and created a Facebook Group to get their members advice on what to do. Most people said they were evil and that they liked Twitter better now anyway because Twitter let them follow celebrities.
Facebook then announced that they would copy Twitter if that would make everyone happy, but everyone was too busy following Lily Allen’s progress across the subcontinent.
MySpace
Officially lost its Mojo, at least according to CNN. But you knew that anyway.
Tumblr
If you have to ask, you’re not cool enough to know.
