A post of mine from earlier this month explored how many smaller and medium sized businesses have had difficulties embracing social media as a profit generating tool. In fact, many companies have banned all social media from being used by employees in what I still think is an example of poor business practice- with companies working against the forces of nature rather than with them. Then this morning in my RSS feed is an article from the Canadian press about how “the savviest companies have instead mobilized their cyber social butterflies as a key part of business strategy”. These cyber social butterflies are frequently younger people who bring a naturally intuitive skill set to job. According to Alexandra Samuel of the University of British Columbia it’s because “They understand social media culture, because it’s actually the culture they live in”

While the savvy companies embracing social media in Vancouver and other major cities are keen to engage their existing and potential clientele through the medium, it’s not just as simple as hiring 20 year olds to carpet bomb the public on every platform you can find. The platforms themselves that we use are beginning to show stratification and diverging social patterns that may impact your engagement strategy. New research by the Nielson Group, explored in an earlier Senses post from Jordana, shows that social stratification is beginning to be reflected in our social media platforms. To sum up the breakdown given in a CNN story about the findings, Myspace is blue collar, Facebook is upscale suburban and Highly Educated while Twitter and Linkedin are elitist. In fact According to the Nielson findings “…almost 38 percent of LinkedIn users earn more than $100,000 a year” and there is a strong connection between that site and Facebook with many users having active pages on both.

Facebook has of course become an explosive phenomenon, but what I find so interesting about the platform is just how agile the company has been in finding revenue streams. It has come to dominate the social media spectrum and has very subtly yet aggressively from the onset commercialized and monetized the site progressively through apps, surveys, and now more direct forms of advertising. Something that took Google a few years to figure out (how to make money on the internet) Facebook seems to have figured out (and every angle) relatively briskly. Major marketing and advertising groups have taken notice. Last month at Ad Week’s Social Ad Summit in NY it was recognized that “Facebook is one of the only social networks whose users are becoming more engaged (and at a pretty strong rate), giving it a huge advantage when selling ads to agencies/marketers” It’s still growing, and not only that, those who are using it are becoming more engaged.

These two trends are crack cocaine to marketing executives, who have been invited into the fold by Facebook through “Owned Properties” and other advertising and marketing products that the site offers. Owned Properties are essentially Facebook pages started by larger companies that capitalize on this deeper engagement trend by creating constant dialogue or activities with users. For a list of some examples of these owned properties go here. I see it like a sort of mobile that hangs above a babies crib, keeping us constantly fascinated and engaged. Where I’m most interested in social media for profit (because wasn’t it about just being social and connecting with people at one point?) is in the realm of small and medium sized businesses. I find the corporate uses make me feel like I’m being talked down to, literally like I’m a baby that needs a new toy or a new game to draw me into a brand or product. Startups and smaller businesses don’t seem to have this kind of frivolous tone, they engage in a more frank and respectful tone which I think demonstrates the more respectful position they take in regards to new and valued consumers- as opposed to major brand who view us more like cattle or toddlers with money. This psychology of advertising traces itself back to the very beginnings of the Freudian/Bernays rooted PR philosophy of the early 20th century that I sincerely hoped and continue to hope Social Media can help us break out of. But like all natural phenomenon, geological, biological or sociological there exists an ebb and flow.

Where social media once empowered consumers to demand better from producers, putting large companies on their heels (read Groundswell) and armed small companies with an affordable tool to engage mass population, we may be witnessing a swing of the pendulum back to the major advertisers. Interesting that they’re now using younger and younger people to engage the consumer. It’s like an accelerated dialectical info-materialism. A generation is created by social media, and then they find employment harnessing the power of the new tools that defined them. I just sounded like a total Marxist. Go capitalism! (Never end a social media blog on a socialist note)

If you’re a small or medium sized business and you have questions about how you can successfully adopt social media into your business and marketing plan, get in touch with us at Thirdi. It’s what we do. It’s what we love.