Reading an article titled: ‘Is Facebook really dead for young people?’ on prweek.com yesterday afternoon, reminded me of the many occasions I’ve heard chums declare ‘I’m coming off Facebook!’
And I must admit, when my own mother’s friend request popped up in my notifications, it somewhat tarnished its appeal for me.
Undeniably, Facebook is still the centre of the social media ecosystem – with its more than one billion users, who are responsible for 1.13 trillion "likes", 219 billion photos and 17 billion location check-ins (and counting).
But with the rise of image based social media - the likes of Snapchat, Instagram and Keek - it’s a subculture that is evidently more conducive to the U25s lifestyle. We like things to be sleek, smart, quick and visually pleasing to keep us hooked... as our attention spans are dimensioning by the second. Visual stimulus is nothing new; the age old saying “a picture is worth 1000 words” says it all.
When Hunter wellies launched a competition on Instagram it was a huge success, not just because of the overwhelming response, but it successfully started to pave the way for an engaged and connected Hunter wellie wearing community. Hunter could get a crystal clear picture (not metaphorical) into the where, when and what its consumer audience was doing: Priceless.
These platforms are far more compatible with the demands of all things mobile – who doesn’t have a camera on their phone?!
The PR industry is about keeping abreast with new developments and growing trends - finding creative ways to communicate and engage with our target audiences and the opinion formers. As far as I can see, with the increasing demand for all things to be mobile, the growth of visual social media just offers our industry more opportunities to communicate in creative and impactful ways.
As for Facebook, there’s no doubt that its future is safe for the short term, always developing ways to be more intrinsic, I’m sure Zuckerberg has something up his sleeve to keep Facebook at the forefront.
Alex Underwood
Account Executive
