As I laughed along to the new Saturday Night Live episode that ran on May 8, it struck me how my enjoyment that evening, fueled by the hosting skills of Betty White and a bevy of the series’ most popular female cast members, was made possible by the sheer power of social media.
The idea for that particular episode, which was the show’s highest-ranked since its parodies of the 2008 presidential election, began as a twinkle in the eye of Facebook fans across the nation. After 88-year-old Betty White’s role as a quirky grandmother in the 2009 film “The Proposal” and subsequent appearances in comedic skits on the Web and a Snickers commercial featured during the 2010 Superbowl, the social media-savvy generation decided they wanted to see more of Betty – and the way to do it was to promote their support of her through a vigorous Facebook campaign to get her on SNL.
This event – among others – demonstrates that interaction in the virtual world has gained increasing influence over events that happen in our tangible one.
And though users have growing real-time influence on others through social media space, this is by no means a one-way street. Recently, Facebook announced its plans to make location networking – made popular on social networking sites like FourSquare – an integral part of its site sometime in May, as reported by Advertising Age. This functionality, which allows users to virtually “check in” wherever they might be – the local Starbucks, the library, – to keep friends and family abreast of their location at any given point in time.
Location networking on the large-scale, like through Facebook, a site with hundreds of millions of users, leaves open the opportunity for marketers and advertisers to reach consumers in real time, targeting their efforts based on where users are from one minute to the next. Though many of us have grown accustomed to seeing advertisements based on preferences we’ve listed in our social networking profiles, facing ads for businesses within a certain radius of where we’re sitting takes things to a whole new level.
Whether the location functionality becomes a mainstay of Facebook, à la News Feed, or more of a flop (FarmVille, anyone?), there’s no doubt that this minute-by-minute type of social updating has the potential to change the landscape of marketing and advertising in the social media sphere.
