Just Do.

There has been a lot of chatter amongst the media, the adverati and the social gurus around the world as to what the next phase of social engagement and measurement will be. Not necessarily how the media is served up, be it anonymous or ephemeral, but how people react to it and how to really measure its value based on reaction.

Digiday ran an article on July 29th entitled Beyond the ‘like’: What comes next in social measurement that inspired me to write this post.

The Like and The Retweet have served us well as an introduction to social mechanics but like most things it’s time is up. We now need to move beyond these simple and shallow interactions and start to think about new and more meaningful ways to offer and measure the impact of social media.

Social media is content curated or created and then shared with other people with the hope to illicit action or reaction, it can be in the form of a silly cat video or sharing a serious article about a world changing event.

Regardless of the subject it was shared by someone who cared about the subject enough to attach it to their social profile or online identity.

So why is it that social networks have such cold and shallow ways to interact with the media? To either ambiguously Like it or to post some snarky comment in response to it?

I took some time to think about media and content in general and it dawned on me that all content can be considered social. What is considered “social” has grown well beyond the walls of the networks that they are shared on such as Facebook or Twitter. Content can be shared across the internet at from any point of origination via many channels both public and private.

The Like button has long been the mainstay of social interaction, however it has become a shallow and ambiguous function that barely scratches the surface of how people can react to something.

People share things that require much more than the act of Liking or Retweeting, things that provoke emotion and the need to take action. When something provocative is shared there is a moment of truth that inspires us to want to actually do something but our options are limited.

Let’s be honest, an article shared about a famine in a third world country doesn’t warrant a Like, if anything a Like would be a highly inappropriate reaction to something so devastating.

We need to start to rethink about the way we illicit responses and sharing and give equal thought as to how we want people to really react to the content we put in front of them.

If I share something on Facebook or read something on CNN that moves me to do something why is it that the only thing I can actually do is Like it or endorse it? Why is it that I need to be left with a lingering feeling that I just Liked something really bad?

Social media, all media for that matter needs deeper and more actionable functions that allow us to react properly to the subject matter. Sanitized social sharing diminishes the content and leaves us with an empty feeling that we saw and did not do.

Recently a small team from RAPP participated in a hackathon that set out to rethink how a new generation consumes media.

They didn’t just consider how to consume the media, which was mind blowing, but how to better react to the media being consumed.

They thought of a new concept called The Do Button (working title) it is much more robust than the basic Like or ReTweet. It is a highly contextual call to action that supports the media itself and gives consumers the ability to take action.

Let’s say I am reading about a human rights atrocity taking place in Syria and I feel somewhat helpless about what is going on, I may feel the need to share this article on Facebook with the desire to call more attention to this atrocity. Once that media makes its way to my social stream all anyone can do is Like it. That just seems wrong, why would anyone Like something like that?

What I really want is a way to get them to actually Do something. I want a call to action that gets my network to take notice of the atrocity and then to take action. I want to mobilize people to do something meaningful.

This subject doesn’t have to be so dark, lets think about reading a passionate movie review that inspires us to instantly want to buy tickets to go see this great new movie, right now.

I can go cut and paste the title of the movie into another website and then create a login and click a few more hundred times in order to obtain those tickets. By the time I buy the tickets I probably have lost some of the inspiration that moved me to buy them in the first place. The experience gets diminished and regret may start to seep in.

But what if instead of simply Liking the review or sharing it on Twitter because I think it is really well written why not be able to buy those tickets or watch a trailer at that moment? Instead of Liking it and then figuring out what it is I want to do later.

Currently social calls to action are riddled in apathy. They are creating a habit of doing nothing rather than doing something. We are masking our emotions with a simple Like or ReTweet to satisfy the urge to react when we can be doing so much more.

So don’t just read this post and Like it or reTweet it, do something about it!