The Impact of Social Media

We touched on the Power of Social Media in our message of the day a few days ago, but 15 seconds hardly seems like enough attention for something of such magnitude.

When I think of the term ‘social media’ the first thing that comes to my mind is Facebook. While Facebook is a big part of social media (and a big reason social media has come to play such an important role in marketing), social media is basically creating and sharing easily accessible information through social interaction. This includes, but isn’t limited to:

• Facebook and other networking sites like LinkedIn, MySpace, Bebo, etc.
• blogging, podcasts
• micro-blogging (Twitter, Plurk, etc.)
• collaboration sites like Wikipedia
• social bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon, Delicious, etc.
• multimedia sharing sites like Flickr, YouTube, Last.fm, slideshare
• review and opinion sites like yelp.com, Yahoo! Answers, etc.
• online gaming and virtual worlds

Another thing to take note of is that these channels are not only available from a computer—you can access them from your iPhone, Blackberry, smartphone… and the release of the iPad has taken accessibility one step further.

Why is this important?
Just take a look at the statistics page at Facebook and you’ll begin to see the marketing potential that social media offers—over 400 million active users and each user has, on average, 130 friends. Do the math, that’s a lot of connections.

Now, take in to account all of the other networking websites out there and the fact that people can share information through these sites, or via email, or by tweeting, bookmarking, texting, etc. It’s almost hard to fathom the huge reach that social networking can provide.

Who cares?
To be honest I’ve asked this question a few times. And the answer is always ‘more people than you think’. At the moment I’m a fan of Ice Cream Sandwiches on Facebook, along with over 800,000 other people. That’s right. Ice cream sandwiches.

Let’s take a look at something a little more relevant:

I’m with COCO
When the Jay Leno/Conan O’Brien ‘feud’ began a Facebook fan page was created in tribute to Conan. Well, currently there are almost 1 million fans who are “with COCO, no matter what”. And that’s just a piece of the social media ‘publicity’ that these guys generated. WordStream did a Conan vs. Leno Social Media Poll looking at Twitter followers, Facebook fans, blog and forum mentions, etc. Their conclusion was that neither the Conan or Leno parties were using social media to full effect, but that fans themselves were taking initiative and doing the job for them. This is what we’re talking about when we say “The Power of Social Media”—when fans, customers, prospects, ordinary people carry your message, brand, or campaign to their peers on your behalf.

A Guinness World Record for a Podcast?
With an average of 3 million copies sold annually, it’s no wonder we’ve heard of the Guinness Book of World Records. But who would have thought The Ricky Gervais Show would get the nod for the world’s most downloaded podcast with an average of 261,670 downloads per episode. With 43 episodes and counting that’s a lot of downloads. Far more than the 3 million copies of the Guinness World Records book.

Kevin Smith vs. Southwest Airlines
We mentioned this in that same message of the day the other day, but since then there has been more activity on the subject. Kevin Smith has posted two Smodcasts (his version of the podcast), a few blog articles, and too many Tweets to count. Southwest Airlines hasn’t been as active, but they did react to the outrage via their Twitter account and their company blog.

There have also been numerous blog articles from supporters for both parties—from Kate Harding at Shapely Prose, to Jenn Q. Public at Newsreal, to Teresa Rodriguez Williamson at the Huffington Post. Even CNN got into the game when Anderson Cooper discussed the situation with his panel. Not to mention the overwhelming support that Kevin Smith has received from his Twitter followers and fans.

Haiti Relief and Social Media
The earthquake that struck Haiti quickly became a dominating story on the internet, with 3% of blog posts having something to do with the Haitian quake or relief efforts. The Red Cross Twitter account has gained more than 10,000 followers since the quake and more than $8 million has been raised by people texting from their mobile phones.

This is an instance where millions of people used numerous social media channels to educate and inform and help others. It’s really a great example of how social media can bring people together on a global scale.

What does this all mean?
Essentially it means that social media provides us with a platform that’s almost limitless in terms of it’s reach. We can take an idea, story, product or theme and with some creativity and marketing savvy it can blossom into a global campaign reaching millions of prospects. But the interesting aspect of it all is that these campaigns are driven by the people that see them.

If you provide something of interest or value, people will find it and share it with their peers, who in turn share it with their peers, and so on. It may take some time, but when you can reap the rewards that come your way you won’t doubt the marketing power that social media provides.