The pace of technological change is accelerating rapidly. In the case of social media, it is rapidly becoming social multi-media, meaning we have the addition of photos, graphics, animation, music, video, and more. Why is this happening? Because social media really isn’t about the word “media”; it’s about the word “social.” It’s about sharing. And as you know, we have lots of different ways to share online.
We have social photo sharing such as Flicker, social video sharing such as YouTube, social game playing in 3D environments, and many others. But what we’re seeing today is that all the social media sites are making it easier for users to add any and all types of media to their posts, thus creating a new multi-media form of social sharing.Google Plus, for example, takes Twitter to a new level in that it allows us, very easily, to put photographs and videos within our social communications. Facebook has allowed us to do that for some time and it’s now making that easier and easier.
The point is that we’ll increasingly see videos, photography, graphics, animation, and 3-dimensional simulations as a part of social media, because, reading words is one thing; actually seeing those words come to life is another. It’s human nature to humanize technology and adding different types of media to what we are sharing makes the sharing more meaningful, connected and fun.
One of the key benefits of social media is creating social trust. This is important for business to understand, because when you say your product or service is the best, people may or may not believe you. But when people see their friends and others “just like them” saying something is the best, now you’ve developed social trust for your claims. People are then inclined to think: “My friends and colleagues are saying this product is the best, it must be.”
So how do businesses humanize the social media ads and marketing campaigns they’re implementing? They will humanize them with photographs and videos of employees; happy customers using you’re their products, and illustrations of how customers have saved time and money using their services. It’s time for business to go beyond simply writing blogs and posting tweets, they need to embrace the quickly evolving world of social multi-media.
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