Curating Social Media
Social media has changed in the last decade of use. It’s become so much more than a platform for friends and family to stay connected through status updates. It’s become the primary news outlet for the emerging generation. Yes, it wasn’t that long ago that people got their news through newspaper and tuning into their evening network news program. Now, news is pushed to, not pulled by, us. So media outlets have taken a piecemeal approach to delivering content and social media has proven to be the perfect medium to do so.
“...the shift from reading words to watching video is stealing away a treasure trove from the younger generation...”
It’s also become a storyboard and megaphone for bloggers, communicators and artists to share stories and convey knowledge through language and static/motion imagery. But the needle is clearly tipping towards the latter. Thus, Facebook's "video first" strategy, which was pushed late last year. In an article by USA Today, it was reported that "Zuckerberg believes that within five years most of what people consume online will be video, subsuming words and photographs." But, in my opinion, the shift from reading words to watching video is stealing away a treasure trove from the younger generation because, since the beginning of time, knowledge was preserved and conveyed through writing books. There is so much powerful and beautiful literature that is laying waste because our kids are more prone to pick up a tablet or smartphone and feast on video junk food over the classics that have sustained and shaped our history (but I'll write more on this is a future post).
Social network advertising revenue from 2014 to 2017 (in billion U.S. dollars)
Also, companies use social media to market products, promote their brands, connect to customers and incubate new business ideas. Companies want to become lifestyle brands and they invest heavily to build a social media following. Thus, it’s no surprise that advertisements have become (for good or worse) a mainstay in our social media experience, and platforms are constantly tweaking their approach to tactfully balance quality user experience and profitable revenue stream. To give you a pulse, global advertising revenue for social media is projected to to finish at $41 billion (US) for 2017 and has significantly increased year-over-year ($17.85B in 2014, $25.14B in 2015, and $32.91B in 2016; as reported by Statista).
The Need to Filter Content
With so much information being thrown at us, we’ve all had to learn how to build filters that strain out non-essentials and highlight what really matters. The typical person has email accounts specifically designated for subscriptions and sign-ups, has learned the value of unsubscribing/unfollowing and turning off notifications, skims or skips descriptive content, and has developed the uncanny ability to quickly scroll (flick) through feeds and stop on the faces and content that matter.
In the end, we make social media as complex or as simple as we want/need it to be. Some grow tired of it and suspend/delete their accounts. Some are on every platform and leverage it for business and pleasure. Some want to be entertained by it and others want to monetize from it. And there is no right way to use it. Maybe the biggest morph in the last decade has been the ability to curate one’s experience.
"Taco Tuesdays" with me
In the myriad of things you could be doing or looking at right now, I sincerely appreciate you slowing down a bit to read and see what’s swirling through my mind. Somehow, if the words and/or images I share impact your day on a small scale or your trajectory on a large scale, I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity and capacity to share thoughts and stories in these small ways and I hope that a precise word or provoking image will sit with you. So, I’m going to slow down the pace of my posts to be more thoughtful in my content and respectful of your time, and my hope is to share a meaningful post weekly. Think of it like Taco Tuesdays. Sometimes it'll be a little street taco that you can woof down and run. Other times, it might be a full taco platter. Thanks for allowing this taco to get through the filter!