Hmmm…?
Today
it seems like everyone has a blog and has something to say.
It’s hard to
remember a time when we used to phone or actually visit our friends to learn
more about their lives. It’s so easy to “catch up” or “keep up to date” via emails,
posts and online channels, however has this voyeurism contributed to us losing
the human touch? Much has been written about Facebook diminishing our real
relationships and increasing our
loneliness and has been attributed to creating subsets of groups
collaborating online for either good or evil (think
internet trolls). An internet troll can destroy your company’s website in
minutes or cause disruption to your business causing forward planning and extra
security policies to be firmly in place.
We used to speak in whole words and sentences…
Online channels have inched into
every aspect of our lives and even changed the way we communicate – Facebook’s “Like”
is a term widely accepted in all social circles to describe almost anything and
we no longer have to spell correctly with whole words to get our message across
(think “LOL” or “OMG”).
Other cultural changes (across all ages) include the
term “Facebook me” when meeting new people rather than handing out a phone
number! It seems we’d rather communicate via a screen barrier rather than make
F2F conversation with a real person. If your company does not have a website or
connection to social media accounts it could spell instant death in today’s
competitive environment.
We never gave out our personal information…
Digital marketing channels have
been readily accepted by consumers who sign up and freely share personal
information to join VIP sites, blogs, e-newsletters and websites of interest to
receive direct marketing material. This is great news for marketers as it blurs
the lines of “spamming”, however calls into question ethics and privacy of
consumers. This single action has changed the way we target our audiences and
push out our messages.
We could leave our house without our smart phones (shudder…)
Thinking of the purchase decision
process, searching (or “browsing”) is the first step and has been made easier
through online channels and digital marketing through the availability and accessibility
of information. Consumers are highly mobile and spend a large amount of time on
smart phones per day, often multi-tasking between TV and mobile with predictions
of “
as
many smart phones as people” by the year 2016 in Australia.
This means we can reach consumers
anywhere anytime with the push of a button! Whilst it can be hard to measure
success and we are competing for attention on a global scale, the ability to
send messages and creative content directly to our audiences is very exciting.
As we can now purchase with no human touch points; are we losing the human touch and is social
media to blame?
Related links – learn more:
Credits:
