Is social media the ultimate influencer?

Genesis Gonzalez
Sep 3, 2018 · 2 min read

The next time you see a thread of comments under Donald Trump’s latest tweet, keep in mind that most of the discussion is actually futile if any of the participants are looking to change some minds. According to recent research published on Mashable and conducted by the Pew Research Center, most Americans do not change their minds when presented with opposing views on social media. Of the 4,594 participants, only 14% said they had changed their minds about a political or social issue because of something they saw on social media. Young men in particular were more likely to say they had changed their minds, and more Democrats changed their views than their Republican counterparts.

In a nutshell, most of what we see on social media, at least politically and socially, is not making a difference in our minds when it comes to a change of opinion. While this could signal a generation with more steadfast opinions, the reluctance to change what we think likely comes from increasing wariness of the things we see on social media, and our alert tendencies to not believe everything we see on these platforms. The psychology in play here is also notable: the likelihood that we change our minds based on something we hear on social media from a perfect and total stranger on the thread of a random tweet is very low. So, what exactly does this mean for companies trying to change the minds of crowds with bots and politicians looking to sway votes? Companies, politicians, and campaigns in general will need to depend less on bots to change the minds of users, and focus more on generating content that will serve the same purpose as bots, but produce more genuine results. It is crucial that we change our strategies to an ever-wary generation of users.

You can find the full Mashable article here: https://mashable.com/2018/08/30/pew-social-media-change-views/#fXtJTODw2iqx

Genesis Gonzalez

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