What happens when social media no longer cares about us?
To connect with customers, brands should consider stepping away from computer screens and hitting the streets, argues Kyra Hatzikosmidis.
The past few months has seen a flood of articles surrounding online journalism lay-offs, the future of digital media and the decline of journalism. And while this piece joins that growing list, I write to pose the question: What happens when we can’t keep up with the demands of our social media platforms?
In an expository piece exploring the fear of broken online journalism, Jim Waterson, media editor of The Guardian, wrote that “in the modern world of mobile consumption, most sites are just another form of distraction. Their competition is not just rival scoops – but a vast online ecosystem of entertaining, shareable and social content”.
It can often feel like the worth of a post is determined by how shareable the content is, or the reactions it receives, rather than its quality or the depth of these reactions.
I do not believe that if Facebook failed and Instagram became grossly unpopular, marketers would lose their jobs and companies would revert to ad columns in newspapers. But I do often wonder where our work lies beyond beating constantly changing algorithms and meeting ad spend price points. We work in an industry that demands we adapt constantly and in which our success relies on the temperamental nature of our advertising hosts, Google and Facebook.
