What Are You Achieving With Your Media Empire?
When we look back in history we see signs that men and women lived in small communities for most of our existence. We rarely communicated with more than 150 people. Those people were our tribe and we knew them, of them in great detail, and our survival depended on them.
The world has drastically changed in the last 20 years. Our group size and geographical spread have increased. But group size does not indicate a true tribe. There is no tribal bond or strength in having hundredths or thousands of social media connections. There is some influence and very loose bonds.
With online media, everyone can reach people and channels that were only accessible by big businesses in the past. But even those traditional media outlets have been replaced by social media outlets. Big business used to be able to advertise on TV or in magazines and get wide exposure. No longer is that true. They need someone to advertise their products to their connections.
What does that process look like?
People can write articles, create images and videos, and even publish books without having anyone “endorse” their work before placing it online. Their ideas can spread quickly around the world and enter the minds of others without any filters between the creator and consumer.
What do people typically share?
The most viral videos involve some idea, story, or picture that emotionally pulls you to like, share or even worse react. Most, if not all, groups are loosely based on a common interest(s) and with time lower the threshold for trust. With this threshold lowered the idea/story/picture can spread even more quickly. After all these folks are connected to you and “think” like you.
I am just as guilty of this as anyone.
Early adaptors and innovators, roughly 16 percent of any group, tend to be on the lookout for new ideas/stories/pictures. Once that info has been presented to these early adaptors they start spreading it and spreading it to the early majority. And the early majority continues the spreading.
The bar for sharing is so low. We are bombarded with data of what our loose connections are adopting that we fall for it. Their raw data becomes our real data and eventually information that we share.
Recently there was a story that young women have serious issues when they compare themselves to the pictures of the women they follow on Instagram. The false life and appearance of their connections data became their real data.
We have to remember that Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google, etc. are the new “filters” of this massive raw data that is being shared. Unfortunately, their interest is not in stopping the spread. They benefit from the posts, clicks, retweets, and searches. This is labeled as engagement and rewarded by the social media giants.
Social media companies use that raw data and extract information from us. This information helps them to target us based on group demographics and online behavior. Ultimately they want to sell us ads that target our group membership and affect our purchasing decisions.
The reality is that your media empire is really serving the social media empires. New intermediaries have grabbed the power.
Is all lost?
You are the most important piece of the social media puzzle. Please create wisely because your message could spread and be misconstrued. Please connect to people you want to build relationships with. (I have been too easy to connect to on LinkedIn.) Ultimately your message is better served when given to a smaller tribe that truly reflects who you are and they have your back. Maybe you only need 1000 true tribe members? Not 1 million loose connections that are worthless.
My four cents…
