social networking – SMIO Digital Marketing

One of the biggest Do’s in the social media world is to provide your consumers with images! Because the social media realm moves so quickly if you as an organization or individual do not provide your consumers with a quick attention getting visual you are sure to get lost in fast paced nature of social media networking. Visuals, therefore, have become extremely important, and I say this because we are the right now generation! We want things now! What I mean by this, is imagine if you are clicking on a webpage and it does not load immediately…what do you do? You find something else! Something quicker, something that will give you immediate results. I think of us, metaphorically, as the generation with SAD (Shortened Attention Disorder). This is my own personal term to describe our generation’s current need for immediate results and the fast paced nature of taking in information. Our attention spans are now shorter and we are more impatient as a result. This is not to say that we can not focus on tasks for long periods of time, we simply choose to get the most information out of the shortest time period possible.

I think a good example of how our attention span has changed is if you think back to dial up internet…can you imagine going back to it? Sitting and waiting for your internet to connect and then if the phone rang you were kicked off…I don’t think so!

This is why it is all the more important for all social media users to realize that this is the way things are now, we want immediate results. Meaning if you do not grab your audience’s attention within 5 seconds or so, you have lost them. I highly recommend carefully thinking about your posts and filling them with attention grabbing images. Now these posts can have text as well, but as human beings we are drawn to aesthetically pleasing visuals, meaning you should attach an image with the text! Also, keep your text short. It is great on a blog if you want to type a document that is 300-500words, but on a social media network like Facebook, that is a big “No No”. Keep it short and sweet! If you decide to write a very long post, chances most viewers will not read it and simply scroll past it as it just takes to much time to read. Be concise, straight forward and to the point. And remember, pictures speak louder than words!

Whether we like it or not social media is changing the way we communicate as human beings. I say this because once upon a time primarily all of human communication was done face to face, meaning we would actually aim to meet someone in person and have a conversation with them face to face. However, this is no longer the case, as more and more relationships are being formed and maintained via computer mediated communication (social networking). In forming our relationships in such a way questions may arise, the first being; how do we accommodate for the lack of nonverbal communication using a computer as the tool for communication? As you may know nonverbal communication speaks louder than words! When I talk about nonverbal communication, I am speaking to what we say without saying anything, whether it be through our body language, the tone we use when we do speak, or the facial expressions we use.
No longer being able to view our friends, family, business associates, and others in person, how does the lack of nonverbal communication signals effect these relationships?
Therefore, it is extremely important next time you log onto the social network of your choice, think about the ways in which you accommodate for the lack of nonverbal communication…do you use your punctuation to depict emotion? Do you use emoticons? What are you thoughts on the lack of nonverbal communication via social networking?