For decades, media companies have largely controlled the tools through which consumers were told what to buy, wear or think. Now consumers possess the same ability to produce, distribute and curate content and distribute it to their peers in real time across social media platforms.
If old consumers were assumed to be passive, then new consumers are active. If old consumers were predictable and stayed where you told them, then new consumers are migratory, showing a declining loyalty to networks or media. If old consumers were isolated individuals, then new consumers are more socially connected. If the work of media consumers was once silent and invisible, then new consumers are now noisy and public.
Consumers value their personal time and are loyal to those companies that make their lives more productive. Brands gaining some of the biggest successes in social media are engaging with millions of consumers through value exchange.
I believe that in today's media landscape, we can create and distribute content on multiple platforms while remaining fresh and relevant.
Social media, especially Twitter, has completely changed the fashion and media industries - we now can go direct to consumers in a nanosecond - amazing way of distributing content - right to the point.
While companies were getting comfy cozy with the idea of being on social media platforms, social media transcended those platforms, and few businesses have followed.
Some of the power has shifted from companies to people. Using social media tools (blogs, wikis, tagging, etc.) more individuals are creating semi-spontaneous 'groundswells' of opinions to which companies and other institutions are realizing they must respond. From marketing to consumers organizations are being pulled into engaging with individuals.
As social is where consumers' eyeballs are, businesses must take ownership of their online company profiles. By providing their customers with a place to share content, social media managers can monitor and track content which directly relates to their brand.
ISIL's widespread reach through the Internet and social media is most concerning, as the group has proven dangerously competent at employing such tools for its nefarious strategy. ISIL uses high-quality, traditional media platforms as well as widespread social media campaigns to propagate its extremist ideology.
Media companies' hit-focused marketing did not emerge in a vacuum. It reflects how consumers make choices. The truth is that consumers prefer blockbusters.
Brands' use of social media is not a matter of yes or no. It is simply a matter of how and when. The next generation of consumers will expect their brands to always be available, providing interactive experiences and bringing value to our lives by taking advantage of social media tools in their marketing communications
It is incumbent on the media industry to discourage the glorification of media violence. It is also incumbent on consumers who love America to support this effort with selective patronage campaigns to encourage media that provides uplifting content and to boycott the worst offenders, if necessary.
Thanks to Twitter, Reddit, web media, and social media, we have the opportunity now to kind of blur that line between the people who produce the content, the people that watch it, and instead make it a conversation, make it a real community.
The most potentially transformative impact of social media is its ability to encourage brands to marry profit and purpose. The reason brands participate is that such outreach earns those companies social currency enabling them to start or participate in conversations that connect them to consumers in meaningful ways.
Critics of consumer capitalism like to think that consumers are manipulated and controlled by those who seek to sell them things, but for the most part it's the other way around: companies must make what consumers want and deliver it at the lowest possible price.
Concerned consumers are realizing that they can use social media to organize themselves around shared values to start effective movements. Social media gives them a sounding board to share ideas, as well as a means to punish irresponsible corporate behaviors.
Online media is the future, and younger feminists are already instrumental in using social media and multi-media platforms on the web to document street harassment, archive and critique the media, and create art.