Imagine Your Reality

With the integration of social media into other communication platforms such as cell phones, I’ve noticed with some interest how social media is changing our behavior. Recently I posted about the art of following-up and asked if it was lost in this age of social media. As I argued following-up wasn’t lost because of social media, but because of poor strategies for managing time.

That said, social media can be considered a time drain if it isn’t managed effectively. And for many people social media is initially a gaming platform (how many people do you know who play mafia wars on Facebook?). At the same time because social media is integrated into our cell phones and other mobile devices, it makes it increasingly easy to post to social networks from anywhere. The stream of information consequently has risen as a result.

Social media is changing our behaviors in some ways. We see this with the increased reliance on social media for communicating with people, the choice Pepsi made to spend 20 million on social media campaigns instead of TV commercials for the super bowl and in how more businesses are starting to use social media for some of their customer service efforts.

While social media will never replace traditional marketing, it is influencing the choices businesses make in how they reach out to people, and also in how we interact with each other. As it becomes more integrated into our lives, it will also become more of a major marketing platform, and as a way to schedule meetings, holding conversations, and connecting with businesses that offer things we want or need.