Why Social Experience Is The Future Of Online Content
Thursday, July 22nd, 2010Every time you navigate from website to website, or video to video, you’re driven by the experience. And yet, when we share content online – whether it’s scrolling through a Flickr photostream from your friend’s wedding, or a live-streaming video – we are often left feeling that something is missing; that for all of the attention on social networking, there are few social media experiences that match the fun of hanging out together with friends in person.
It is not about the “whats” and “hows” you upload (which were discussed years ago). It is about the experience of socializing online and how that unite Internet users.
A lack of social experience can bring adverse effect to an industry. The music industry is one example.
What Has The Music Industry Learned?
The music industry offers an excellent case study of the unhappy ending online video could face if we forget the importance of social interaction. By now, everyone knows the tale of how the music industry largely shunned technological improvements in distribution in the early 2000s, just as downloading portals, such as Napster, offered consumers a more engaging and efficient means of acquiring music. The decades-old distribution model for music was dead.
Musicians thought the new model would be fortune making but the result was disappointing. Besides the problems brought by thriving piracy, the availability of musical albums was push to a peak by iTunes’ 99 cent-per-song that music was downgraded to be a cheap commodity.
This has led musicians to go back on tour to entertain and engage their fans and have real-life social interactions. It’s bringing back the real-world social connections that make music so important to our lives.
It Is Not About What You Share
As more and more social platforms appear in the market, people start advocating that what you share is the only thing that matters and it is the only way to recruit loyal fans. This is not the right kind of thinking. iTunes’ 99 cent-per-song model, for example, allows quick access to a large pool of music, but the music products become so easily accessible that are eventually cheapened. Therefore, what you share cannot determine the achievement of a pleasant social experience.
User Experience Will Trump Ubiquitous Content
Not that the content doesn’t matter at all, but if you wish to win by marvelous content solely, you will end up in great disappointment. Digital gadgets like iPhones and iPads have made online consumption so convenient that users are asking for more than the content, but a memorable social experience.
The throne in the social marketing world now belongs not to the content or distribution, but the social experience. Look at all the divas who are gaining bills on their roadshows! Content alone cannot satisfy the greedy mass. A good content which provides a good social experience is now the apple of their eyes.
Social media interaction will evolve to be much more interesting and absorbing. There will be more tools available for us to express our emotions and feelings to friends online, making it easier to link our conversations in the real world with the content we share in the virtual world. Marketers’ focus should really shift from the “whats” (content) and “hows” (ways of distribution) of sharing to social experience optimization, to ensure customers’ loyalty.
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