Social media has not only changed communication as we know it, it has also changed business and marketing.
The youth of today, the so-called X and Y generations, have grown up with the Internet, and businesses and organisations need to adapt to these generations, or they will lose out, says Suzanne Little, head of marketing at DDMA.
Delivering the keynote address at ITWeb's Social Media Summit, on Tuesday, Little spoke about the evolution of social networks and what this evolution means for brands.
According to Little, social networking started in the early 90s, in the form of online forums. She noted that content sharing on these networks was tedious, taking up to 20 minutes to upload and download a photo.
Little compared this to current social media networks that let users share media almost instantaneously.
She also noted that, back in the 90s, there was a stigma attached to users of social networks, as it was widely believed that social networks were only used by IT geeks.
The emergence of file-sharing network Napster changed this landscape significantly, said Little. However, she said although Napster was swiftly cut down by music executives, it illustrated what can happen when remarkable content is combined with a social network - it can go viral.
Today, social media lets users share information over long distances with many people, she said. In addition to social media, there was the emergence of mobile, which Little described as “social media on steroids”.
According to Little, social media, coupled with mobile technology, lets customers talk about brands at their convenience, not that of business'.
For this reason, she argued that businesses have to be part of the conversation. Because of social media, one customer's bad experience can spread across networks and quickly escalate into a crisis.
Little also noted that people are going to discuss brands on social media networks regardless of whether businesses take part in this conversation. However, she said, while businesses cannot control this conversation, if they take part in it, they are able to at least manage it, and prevent a bad incident from escalating.
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