So here is a little fact that really scares me - User Generated Content has surpassed that of publisher content which means we marketers (or publishers) are the "white noise" to the User Generated Content "signal" they produce.
So let's dive into that for a moment ...
At a recent concert I was attending at Madison Square Garden - the most popular thing to do at the concert was not dancing (good thing in case you have seen me dance) but it was video taping, text messaging, and generally sharing the experience with others who were not in attendance. 20,000 people for 4 hours producing tons of content - more content than I produced with all my teams around the world in a year - they exceeded in 4 hours!
Now take that same dynamic and put that in front of your brand. If you have (lets take Microsoft for example) customers who are avid users of the brand and tend to be socially active blogging, tweeting, posting on Facebook, or posting on forums about their good and bad experiences with the Microsoft brand - then how as a brand marketer am I supposed to get my message through all that mess?
The answer is - you can't!
The dynamic I am pointing out exists for most brands today B2C and B2B brands. They quantity of conversations are growing every day about your brand (at Avaya our brand mentions have increased 5 fold in 18 months!!) Now I am not sure it can continue at that pace but I am not 100% sure.
150 million people use Facebook everyday and access it via mobile (more than the entire Twitter registered user base!) and they are said (by Facebook) to be 2 times more active than those that only access Facebook via the web.
One thing is for sure that dynamic is going to continue to get worse as smartphones surpass internet users in the next 2 years. That's a stat we all need to keep an eye on!