Are we as a nation too obsessed with social media?
People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook, thousands of which I reckon are spent trawling through irrelevant applications to find something of interest to that individual! I bet I'm not the only one who clicks through page after page reading about pointless groups, events and quiz's, but I just can't seem to help myself. There is something so addictive about it! Facebook withdrawal is by no means a medical condition, but I know for a fact some people would argue it should be!
Does everybody "Like"?
The "Like" button on Facebook gets hit 65 million times per day!
26% of Facebook users "Like" things on a regular basis! Like what?
I know as well as any other PR student or PR professional that social media such as Facebook is crucial to the work we carry out! It currently has more than 500 million active users, 50% of these active users log on to Facebook every single day.We couldn't as PR's justify not taking advantage of such an amazing free tool as a means of facilitating communication!
My lecturers continually hammer home the fact that we NEED to be insanely computer literate when it comes to social media sites as young PR students soon to be released into the professional world of PR, so for me it has always been a 'part' of PR. Yet when I carried out a month's work experience over the summer in a PR agency it was the last thing people wanted to be seen on, looking over their shoulder every 2 minutes for fear of someone else thinking they weren't pulling their weight or doing their job properly! Why is this?
How much of an affect does the rapidly growing technology industry pose? There are currently more than 150 million active users accessing Facebook through their mobile devices. These people that use Facebook on their mobile devices are twice as active on the site than non-mobile users.
Do you believe that the use of social media is the way forward for ALL PR's?
Are PR students 'ahead of the game' so to speak?
I think it is too much too quick for us who have just started looking into social networking as a marketing tool. The great thing about social networking is that people are fed with information all the time without noticing.
ReplyDeleteAn example could be that when you're online, you easily get distracted clicking link after link to webpages you wouldn't normally go looking for.
Taking the 'Digg' news feed you have on the right side of your blog, I am writing you this comment but already wanting to click some of the topics to view the full stories! We might not enjoy trying to push information to people online, but when you're on the receiving end you definitely notice how much quicker you get information. The Facebook statistics you found are proof that a major news story travels quicker to your friends when you post it on your status than waiting for them to buy a newspaper or turn on the telly.
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ReplyDeleteThere are lots of serious commentators these days who deplore the "five second attention span" that Facebook and the internet generally creates in its users. As a practitioner, I know how social media can lead to genuine two way symmetrical communication and engagement, and as a research tool, Google Scholar cannot be beat. But, I see very little evidence of real value on Facebook. The Like button is the worst offender- Explaining WHY you like something is more important than a thumbs up icon, and that takes real communication. Most Facebook status updates are generally so devoid of content that they hardly qualify as communication.
ReplyDeleteI think as a PR student any form of communication is necessary to your future career. In order to leave your course as the most wanted candidate you must be a master in all fields of communication and social relations. There are many possibilities with facebook, twitter and Bebo etc. People spend so much time on these sites communicating with friends, colleagues and family. Therefore reaching/ creating customers can become a lot easier and be more easily accessible to the majority of people if using a social network. Many people may even prefer it. Therefore I think it is a useful tool to help aid communication. But just remembering that its not the only tool that can be used by a PR student to help aid communication.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment Ines! Yes, you see different groups, ads, quizzes and your kind of intrigued to click on them, read about it or find out more aren’t you. Curiosity gets the better of me anyway and I can get stuck looking for hours! Which is not productive when attempting to get work done is it?!
ReplyDeleteI also totally agree with you when you said that people are fed information without even noticing! It’s a kind of subliminal message process, whereby without even knowing it we create associations with brands, events and products! Something we as PR students can definitely take note off. We can use it to our advantage when creating social media campaigns though! Ensuring we make them stand out, grab peoples attention and most importantly make it interesting so people want to click on your group for instance!
It’s great to hear the perspective of a practitioner; do you think then Catherine that Facebook is a useful tool for Public Relations professional still, despite the growing lack of quality communication? Or do you think it has just become a way for people to inform their ‘1,590’ friends of what they are doing all the time?
ReplyDeleteIt’s so true that the content of Facebook status’s are devoid of content and most of the time the status's I read are irrelevant. It’s something I really didn’t need to know kind of scenario.
Having said this though, I am a repeat offender to the status updates, but in some situations it’s really useful as I know what my friends are doing despite the fact I don’t have time to send them an email or pick up the phone. It enables me to stay ‘updated’ with what they are doing, which I really like.
I think that as humans we are all interested in what other people are doing and what they are like. As much as i hate to admit it, I spend far too much time on facebook going through things that have popped up on my homepage - news stories, events, photos etc. I sit there and think "why the hell am i doing this?!" i have a lot more important things to be getting on with, but as you said at the start of your post Emily, i also just can't help myself!!
ReplyDeleteI dont think it's neccesarily a bad thing to be on facebook and spend time looking at people's profiles and pictures, but i think the extent to which people, particularly students, do so has become quite extreme. Think of how many things you can do online today that you couldn't do six or seven years ago... your food shopping, clothes shopping, creating birthday cards, and instant messaging. If anything, i think that this social media obsession is going to become more extreme as time goes on! Is that good? Or really really bad!?