Working in a marketing agency has given me rare and valuable perspective on decision making. Particularly for brands. The insight into our clients decision processes, priority assignment, and level of self-awareness would be valuable for any organization. Outsider perspective always has a way of revealing strengths and weaknesses that aren’t seen up close. What interests me the most is the correlation between how busy an organization seems and the time it takes for decisions to be made.
In considering topics for this article I circled around the rise of mobile, information accessibility, and some predictions about Apple’s post-Steve Jobs era. Then I looked at my Facebook wall. To my surprise, Bell Canada had posted a new link. I had forgotten that I’d liked the page to write my previous article on Bell, of how Social Media can work against a brand. While I don’t mean to harp on Bell, they honestly step on every rake in the yard. So while I wanted to write something about Apple and the inevitable shift in vision post-Steve Jobs, Bell has dug itself even deeper into the Worst Use of Social Media category. Continue Reading
In case-based MBA programs, students are shown a real world example of a particular business misstep and are asked to identify the elements that lead to the misstep. In many cases, they are not hard to spot. They usually stem from simple, yet critical, factors being discarded or underestimated. Some of these decisions are made with the best intentions and may in fact be the best decision for the profitability of the company, at the time; however, when looking at the long term evolution of technology, consumer spending, demographics, etc they were indeed, short-sighted decisions that lead to the companies demise. Continue Reading
Is Facebook the new library card? Something everyone has but marginally uses? I lost my Library Card a couple years ago. There’s been formidable buzz about Facebook loosing it’s Hot Hot status, which is inevitable for anything popular. The ability for a brand to remain on top is directly linked to it’s ability to continually give it’s audience something new and shiny.
Many brands don’t have the stamina or talent to achieve such a status over and over, notably the exceptions being lifestyle brands such as Nike, Adidas, Diesel, and BMW. Clothing and apparel brands are forced to continually evolve with fashion trends, thereby forcing their management teams to unearth what their exactly excites their customers today.
Tech and relationship companies, such as Facebook, have a harder time maintaining a Hot factor because they rely heavily on inventing new ‘features’ of their product to keep users excited and satisfied. This is difficult. Apparel brands can simply invent or reinvent a style (a T-shirt is a T-shirt after all). What this means is that while Facebook created a solution to achieve easy digital relationships, the cat is out of the bag. It can’t re-solve the same problem. Facebook can only add features to it’s offering, which may enhance it’s product, but over the long run, I believe Facebook has already made it’s primary impact.
I don’t believe users will leave Facebook in droves…at least in the near future. General society is satisfied with the core solution Facebook has provided and until the next paradigm shift of digital social interaction occurs, Facebook will continue to dominate and grow users.
Facebook is entering is middle-age era…and aside from putting on some weight, it is likely to have a few middle age related crisis’ to challenge the younger and better looking solutions like Google+. Expect to see odd design changes, successive releases of new features, and maybe even a rebrand. Eventually, Facebook will remember what it is good at and return to the core focus of simply connecting people.
While the naysayers all point to Myspace as a precedent, Myspace in comparison to Facebook never achieved the global success that Facebook has seen. From the tech savvy to grandmas, family businesses to fortune 500 companies, Facebook truly has dominant reach across ALL demographics. Facebook has established itself as the 100 pound Gorilla, has taken 1st Place for social connections, and will remain in 1st Place until the next paradigm shift occurs.
In my opinion, this shift will happen when social connections fully integrate with digital consumer purchasing. Facebook MAY be overcome by a powerhouse who takes Facebook’s answer to social connections and integrates it with easy digital consumer purchasing. Google is the obvious contender when considering their suite of apps such as Google Wallet and Cart; however, Facebook COULD surprise us all and invent a new platform that combines their experience in social with an on and offline purchasing solution. Needless to say, there’s a long way to go and plenty of start-up contenders that have yet to be revealed.
As a companion piece to the previous post (Why on earth are you using social media?), this video is a comedic take on the adaptation businesses are undergoing with social media. While poking fun, it underscores the importance of knowing why you are using social media and what’s purpose is.
