My digital world and how it has changed

Do more, talk to me, comment, like, love, care, scroll, alert, alert, scroll, alert…..always on 24/7…..

I came to thinking the other day how much my digital life has changed since I first jumped on the train nearly two decades ago. Twitter was made up of the likes of Philip Schofield and Jonathan Ross, and a few other celebs! Facebook was vastly different to what we know now and there was no mention of Pinterest, Instagram, Reddit or Snapchat and LinkedIn was purely a CV based recruitment platform – how different and busy things have become. 

Social Media was born to give the customers a view into a business behind the concrete walls - a chance for them to see news about the staff and business life away from corporate spin and push marketing. The opportunity for businesses suddenly exploded with the multi-way conversations social platforms bought. As well as the ability to read what people thought about you instantly and of course, spy on competitors with ease!

I was talking to another freelancer the other day about how Facebook may have disappeared completely in 2014 when their teenager market dropped off. But did it? Well no, it just transformed to offer the dedicated users a different focus for their timeline, we started to see more people selling items, sharing videos and musings as well as businesses changing their content to adapt. Another clever transformation from Facebook, possibly to the annoyance of users, but they changed with the times, as it had successfully done in the past.

Think back to how your life started out on Facebook…..I fed fish, watered flowers, poked people and people joined lots of groups rather than talking on their walls, oh and don’t forget the gifts you could send one another virtually.

Then they added the mini-feed to the wall, short updates of what your small group of friends were up to. I also remember seeing all the information about you on the front page, and a small handful of apps on the left-hand side.

The next stage was a more prominent news feed, with the ability to like and comment being more commonly used. Still no share button at this stage and the right-hand side started showing more updates and notifications; whilst the left-hand side still maintained a handful of apps.

Then came another design change, a much more visual one, Facebook moved the notifications to the top navigation bar, and we certainly started seeing a welcoming demise in the old games nd a change in how we interacted with friends and businesses. 

Finally, our current timeline launched and we all settled into a new way of conversing, sharing and choosing what posts we interacted with. But as the months move on and the world changes for the good and bad, we are starting to see less traction with Social Media - the choice of platforms, content and pure noise of it all is, personally, quite tiring.

All the platforms that have been created since, have also changed, adapted and got better over the years, with their user generations changing and visual offerings ensuring we all got the best experience.

But regardless of what has changed over time, my message to you is, as long as you know your Social Media strategy and plan - how you talk to new and existing customers, the content you create and the story you tell; it makes no difference what happens on the platforms, or even if they disappear completely, you just adapt to the new layout or platform and keep going.