Social Media are for people, not for Brands

I had a misfortune recently to bump into another article about omnipower of Snapchat, the youngest and recent addition to Social Media platforms. Certain young woman got her pants wet and got overexcited about few large numbers and came to conclusion that brands using Snapchat have 10 billion daily opportunities to build awareness of a brand(!).

Oh! dear…

I mean…

When you’re 20-something, you still wearing pampers and haven’t been around much you very likely to get overexcited over new shinny things. You’re coming from generation that does not appreciate time, does not understand the power of forward and long term thinking, and often you’re obsessing about wrong things. I been there, done that and I did not burn all the T-shirts, I keep them as reminder of past mistakes and lessons I learn. But I have learn and understood that when you’re young you’re often doomed to be wrong. You’re even doomed to be wrong often.

When you’re 40-something, you’ve been around the block few times, read a lot of books and talk to a lot of people you are more likely to pay attention to things that are timeless, not just fashionable in one particular time; you’re more likely to understand trends and decipher buzzwords. You still getting things wrong, occasionally, but you’re more likely to get it right more often than the 20-something.

It’s all about the perspective.

But to have a perspective, or to understand that there is at least few vintage points to everything you need brain and heart, you need to learn to understand your emotions, you need to learn to understand that others are motivated by emotions too.

So, like many others, this particular young girl seen some big numbers and got overexcited and came to conclusion. It’s a right conclusion for her and it’s her prerogative to voice it. It is my right to totally disagree with her and anyone who thinks the same.

Not only Snapchat, but any Social Media platforms are not for Brands, they are for people.

Brands are more than welcome to use it, if they know how and understand that Social Media are platforms to facilitate communication between people! Vital conditions for them to adhere to in order to have any success there is to understand that platforms are Social before they are Media.

On another note, the more so called Social Media Experts and Influencers will try to convince brands to use and be on Snapchat the sooner this platform will get ruined and lose its value to users it was invented for. Just like it happened with newspapers, television, cinema even Facebook and all other media where invasion of marketers and brands promoting their products caused users to find multiple ways to avoid them and ignore. We skip pages full of adverts, we make tea while television shows advertising, and we are ignoring and disengaging with promoted and sponsored posts on Facebook. We don’t need it. When we need it — we know how to find it. And where.

For now, and I still did not download Snapchat or use it, this platform is nothing but X-Factor or America’s Got Talent of Social Media. We watch it in hope of finding those rare diamonds, those touching and emotional performances but the real “value” is in those creeps, freaks and really, really bad ones; those that make us cringe and laugh out loud.

I guess it’s a sign of times we’re living in. We talk at people not with or to them. And the more options we get to communicate with other human beings the less time we spend to use it. The more options we have to stay informed, the more ignorant and self-centered we grow. The more knowledge available to us — the less we understand, or learn, or use it. Live in the now is being misconstrued and leads to attention deficit.

Anyway…

At risk of repeating myself, to this young woman that gets excited about “power” of Snapchat and everybody else:

- people first; not platforms, not tech, not services or products
- we are emotional creatures, not logical 
- emotions moves us forward; logic, brain often stops us from doing anything 
- question everything, especially yourself and big numbers
- question small numbers too
- think for yourself 
- it’s Sunday and weather is nice (at least here in UK for a change) so go get yourself a new suntan (and Snapchat about it if you must!)

Make it a good day, for you and people around you.