Our Social Network Future is Getting Smaller

THE FUTURE WILL PROVE A PICTURE REALLY IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS

So, what does our social network future look like?

Smaller. In a word.

Ever since 2004, when a Harvard undergraduate wanted revenge on an ex-girlfriend and launched The Facebook, the way we access social networks has been becoming more mobile.

Small screens – almost certainly worn on our bodies – are the gateway to our social network future. In fact, for millions, small screen internet access is already very much the now.

From the big screen desktop, through laptops, then tablets and smartphones – our screens are getting significantly smaller. And with both Google Glass and the much-vaunted Apple iWatch at the top of many wish-lists, our view is only going to shrink further.

Why then do we constantly attempt, as marketeers, to fill these reduced screens with so many words when a carefully chosen image or video with a snappy line does a far more effective job?

Wearable technology is here. It is the next big thing. And it will accelerate this shrinking of our social network vista.
Things like Google Glass will, eventually, force us to change the way we think about constant connectivity and, inevitably, the visible size of our messages.

But why wait till then? Let’s act now. The first two letters of ‘pro-active’ are PR, after all.

The PR industry has to make sure all of our content, all of the social media platforms we manage for our clients, are ready to take advantage of this shift.

That means elevating video content, using interactive elements on our Facebook pages and trusting a single image instead of a thousand words to improve the depth of the customer experience and interaction.

The future, for successful social media operations, means strategy must engage users in the mobile experience and encourage and enable them to generate shareable user content. That means pictures, videos, and reviews.

Smaller may also mean nicely designed infographics instead of long-winded press releases, and perhaps an investment in unique, original photography instead of generic cut and paste images culled from the internet.

In ten years, when we’re all wearing Google Glass 9.0, no-one will want (or have the time) to read through reams of text scrolling across their tiny personal screen. They’ll want instant, bite-sized, quality gratification.

We need to give them what they want, exactly how they want it, in order to prosper.

In future, those who truly think big will be the ones who see it small.

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