Nightlife and Social Media
If you are reading this it means you are connected to the internet so I would already consider you to be internet savvy. It’s already well known that technology, social media especially, has given us new tools & platforms for marketing and promotion. I won’t bore you with incorrect statistics such as:
Trinidad and Tobago has 570,000 users of the online social networking site, Facebook
Which I saw somewhere in a newspaper report. Let’s get straight to the point.
It’s clear that, over the last decade, promotion for the partying and nightlife industry has made a drastic shift to from traditional channels to the more cost effective, social media. The ensuing question is now, “How is this being used by both millennial promoter and consumer?
I’ve decided to break this up into the three key event phases: the before, the during, and the after.
The Before
INSTAGRAM is the most popular form of promotion in the millennial generation. It’s almost guaranteed that a nightclub, bar or promotional group has an Instagram page. As it has become the second most active social media platform, businesses have flocked to Instagram in order to get millennials’ attention. The Instagram feed is a simplified version of Facebook’s own, displaying only pictures and videos which make promotion easier because of less clutter. Familiar with duplicate posts from 50 different people at once? I’m sure you think it’s annoying, but it’s also effective. New features like Instagram Galleries where users can upload up to 10 photos at once have made the app even more effective.
FACEBOOK, while still the most popular Social Media by far, has been a dying platform for promotion over the last couple years. And this is all because of one thing — “The algorithm”. In a nutshell, Facebook’s objective is to select the stories that would be most relevant and engaging to each user to show in their News Feed. These are ranked and shown in order of importance, from things like a friend getting married to a video that 10 of your friends have may have shared. Facebook prioritizes stories you’ll like, comment on, share, click, and spend time reading, which we’ll refer to as “engagement”. This makes Facebook a difficult tool to use unless, of course, you do paid ads (yeah Zuckerberg and dem fellas greedy) to reach your target market. However, do not count them out yet. Facebook still has the important feature many have unable to replicate — events. Facebook Events is still used by many as a tool to invite patrons and increase awareness of whatever promoters may be hosting.
TWITTER, which may be on the decline worldwide, is growing rapidly in the Caribbean. Twitter relies on micro-blogging for communication, by allowing users to post short, 140 character messages to communicate with their followers and get information spread around. In Trinidad specifically, it has led to the creation of one big community, “TriniTwitter”, where persons can come on share their ideas, topics and of course events. How is this different from Facebook? Facebook is focused on the idea of connecting friends, while Twitter is designed for people from all over the world who haven’t met to carry on a global conversation. This makes the community aspect even more powerful as event hosts and companies can fall into any discussion and engage users.
The During
INSTAGRAM leads the pack again, with heavy interaction during events. With features such as Instagram live, stories and boomerang, few can come close. This time the majority of the users are the actual patrons as the promoters have already done what they can do to get persons to attend. Instagram Stories was introduced about a year ago and the feature lets you share all the moments of your day, not just the ones you want to keep on your profile. Its biggest benefit was that you don’t have to worry about over posting. You can share as much as you want throughout the day, then photos and videos will disappear after 24 hours. The feature while very popular was not very unique as a matter of fact… you know what, let me not.
SNAPCHAT was launched 2011 and it was always about temporary pictures — also known as snaps. People loved Snapchat and it took off because of the nature of those photos or conversations. Then “out of nowhere”, Instagram announced that they were doing the exact same thing. Snapchat was flying high in early 2016, but after the launch of Instagram Stories, we saw a massive drop in how fast Snapchat was growing. In the event arena, most persons gravitated back to Instagram because they already had a large following making it easier for persons to see their stories. And well, the idea of having two apps that did the same thing did not sit well with most people leading many to uninstall Snapchat. Furthermore, the new feature “Snap Map” did not help, but that’s for another discussion. Despite all of this, true Snapchat fans stayed loyal and many still use it to document their day as well as nightlife events giving Snapchat the number two spot.
TWITTER AND FACEBOOK can possibly tie here, but there is only one bronze medal so I give it to Twitter. As mentioned before the community aspect of Twitter makes live tweets more valuable than live statuses. Posting 3 statuses in an hour can come off as very annoying on Facebook, while 3 tweets in a minute are more than acceptable. Users generally tweet to give feedback on what is going on in the event or maybe to even find out where their friends who were “by the Beetham” an hour ago have reached. While it is nowhere near the numbers of Instagram Stories and Snaps, Twitter is still an effective communication tool during the event.
There is much debate on whether WhatsApp is considered a form of social media so it was left out.
The After
INSTAGRAM takes the gold again as the most popular platform after the event. This time, both patron and promoter take charge by posting pictures from the event. Promoters and nightclubs may post Thank You messages or even crowd shots to show how successful their event was. Patrons, of course, post pictures taken from phones or their favorite photographer. Instagram retains the edge over Facebook because the Instagram algorithm is not as harsh even with personal profiles.
“The order of photos and videos in your feed will be based on the likelihood you’ll be interested in the content, your relationship with the person posting and the timeliness of the post.” — Instagram
FACEBOOK because of its “Facebook Album” feature has ensured a certain advantage over the rest. Hundreds of pictures are posted online from various photographers and sometimes the promoter or host themselves. It allows patrons and even persons who didn’t attend the event to get feel for how the party looked and what they have missed. Although not as popular now as they once were, reviews can be shared on the event page where persons can express their thoughts about the event.
TWITTER, just like Facebook is used to give feedback on the success of the event. Sometimes lengthy post-party discussions are held a day or few days after the event. Often, certain hashtags are used to create a bigger community discussion as both good and bad reviews are shared.
With three out of three, it is clear Instagram is our very own Usain Bolt. The Facebook-owned platform is doing very well and their cloning strategy seemed to be a game changer. Let’s hope, however, they do not add a status option or maps.
