I saw this quote on Twitter the other day:
🤖 Digital marketing is like sailing. There’s wind & current.
The wind is consumer trends, which changes on a regular basis.
The current is the story of your vision & product, which remains consistent.
Sway with the wind. Become an expert in the current. #MarketingTwitter
— Rocket | Career Coaching (@RocketCareersUK) November 9, 2021
While “sway with the wind” leaves something to be desired (never once has “swaying with the wind” been a sailing goal of mine), I appreciate the point @RocketCareersUK is trying to make.
Let’s see how far we can extend the “wind is consumer trends” metaphor by looking at consumer trends in social media platforms.
This may come in handy the next time you’re asking yourself, “should we start posting on [insert social media platform here]?”
Social media consumer trends as wind patterns
The persistent shift.
The way to determine if a moving breeze is a persistent shift is to experience it…which can take a while. Forecasts may be right, but you could also be seeing a long oscillation.
Social media started hitting its pace after smartphones took off. The rise of social media platforms is a persistent shift; social media isn’t going away. Certain social platforms have stood the test of time and are still gaining active, engaged users. But keep in mind that even a persistent shift stops moving at some point. Just because a social channel is successful now doesn’t mean it will always be on top.
Here are some social media platforms that have had a steady rise / been a persistent shift.
- Facebook (launched 2004)
- YouTube (launched 2005; both a social platform and a search engine)
- LinkedIn (launched 2003)
- Instagram (launched 2010)
- Reddit (launched 2005; great for social listening, tough for brand promotion)
The gusty day.
You see it coming on the water, and you prepare for it to hit. “Get ready with the vang/backstay.” (Or it’s a puff bomb day and they hit you without warning.) Gusty days keep you on your toes.
When there’s a new “shiny object” in social media, there’s a good chance the boss walks in and says, “we need to change our strategy to include this!” Andrew Davis — an incredibly nice, incredibly savvy marketer — has named this FOMOOASP (Fear of Missing Out On Another Social Platform). Be prepared for gusts by doubling down on what you do well rather than changing your strategy to jump on a new platform.
Here are a few social media platform gusts that blew by without making much of a mark:
- Clubhouse (live, audio-only content; this could stage a comeback, but it would take a lot)
- Vine (6-second videos; this died when Instagram allowed 15-second videos)
- Google+ (Google’s answer to Facebook; many people signed up accidentally while clicking around their gmail account)
The sea breeze.
If the land, water and weather elements align, a sea breeze comes in and makes for a banner day of sailing. But as the sun sets, that great breeze starts dying.
The ultimate sea breeze social platform is arguably MySpace. It gained traction as a music-sharing/exploring platform, but it lost its vision and its #1 status to Facebook about 5 years after its launch.
It can be tough to tell when a new platform will be like a sea breeze. You can ask this question of platforms like TikTok and Snapchat. They’ve been successful with younger audiences, but where will they end up when those audiences get older?
But social media platforms aren’t like breeze types or wind patterns.
No forecast can tell you which platforms will come and which will go. We have to realize that we could go all-in on a platform only to have it die a slow death. So what can we do?
Pick one social platform and make it fantastic. Make sure it’s the platform where your ideal audience is most active and engaged.
Don’t go all-in on brand new platforms. It takes a lot of time and effort to understand who’s on a platform, how they use it, what unspoken rules exist and how you can engage. If this new platform is where your ideal audience is, proceed with caution.
Recognize that you don’t own the social media platform. You’re at the mercy of their algorithms and rule changes. Social media platforms are designed to keep people online and active so the platform makes money, not so you do.
Direct people from social platforms to your platforms. Use social media platforms to get people to engage with content platforms where you have complete control: your website, blog, email list, print content. Joe Pulizzi, the “godfather of content marketing,” says it this way: “Don’t build your content house on rented land.”
I’ll leave you with more Pulizzi wisdom.
“Leverage those social channels, but always treat them like tomorrow they may be gone” (read the full article).
Or else you might get caught swaying with the wind.
