Museum of obsolete objects

When I thought that I’ve seen everything on Facebook and there are no more apps to move individuals’ attention on the promoted brand I met ‘Dove Body Language‘, which encourages the users to write messages in a creative way: the letters are made of bodies of all shapes, summary dressed but happy to construct an H, N and why not an O. But poor guys, they are Dove and they still have a safe 7000 monthly users (only London has a known population of approximately 7 million).

Their Body Language video uploaded by DoveGlobal on 26th May 2011 has reached 2829. Is this anybody’s fault? Maybe we can blame our social media mania, that we tend to stick to no matter what happens, our deep consideration for it, which generates ignoring this way the future era to come.

Unfortunately, there’s a problem regarding the efficiency of a campaign thrown on any kind of social media, since people are tired of actually being bombarded with messages on all their real/virtual spaces. Think about this: how many times to you read Evening Standard in the tube and watch an add carefully? In fact, do you remember one from the last night newspaper? I thought so. What about on Facebook? Do you receive events invitations? Yes, you do. How many of them are ignored by you?

I won’t even go to Twitter, since the @, #, RT are insufficient tools in gaining what we all linger for: interactivity. Do you post jobs on Twitter? Well you may loose your best employee, just because s/he wasn’t there at the moment to see your advert. Are social media easy to control? I guess not, since even the Royal Family had some problems with it. Even if we assume from the beginning that everybody has at least a Facebook account the situation in reality doesn’t seem like it, since there are 500 million active users. I don’t deny the fact that it is a big number, but still you cannot reach them all. Most of the users have a restricted circle of friends on Facebook, resuming only to people they know in their real life. There is also a matter of language, since we do have to speak the same language. Yes, there is Google Translate at your service, but it helps when you have a clue about the language you intend to speak. I wouldn’t dare to post something translated from English to Japanese. I might offend the person without even doing it consciously. There is also a matter of culture, because I might like Danish Tulip hot dogs more than the Frankfurters. They fit my eating habit better than the latter. It’s just the way it is. So how can you go on Facebook, launch a message and hope that it will travel more 3 friends circles away (if it has the chance to go that far)? I’m not trying to offend anyone here, so let’s check one of the good aspects as well. There are the Facebook adverts that at least give you the chance of sending them to a specific target and beyond the friend circles you have at your disposal.

Still, you have a Facebook page with 17 likes on it collected during 1 month, but you keep filling it with posts just in case. It will hardly grow if you don’t find an interactive way of reaching your public. How many times have you searched for an organization’s page because of its reputation? How many times have you liked a shared page because you knew they are really good or because the person who shared it was credible in your opinion? What if you didn’t have a clue about that person or organization? Well, see? Social media is not interactive anymore. People don’t give likes enthusiastically as they did at the beginning of this era and they do care about the source. If it is unknown to them, they treat it skeptically and they don’t wanna give you the opportunity of filling their Wall with information about your company/event/whatever. Don’t be afraid to use social media in a creative way, but also don’t be afraid to try something new, to embrace the newest techs and media.

by Valeria Tudor