Digital moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. – Not Ferris Bueller
If the “first social Olympics” have proved anything so far this year, it’s that social media moves faster than the news. If you live in the United States and you’re both digitally connected and an avid fan of the Olympics, then you’ve almost certainly seen results from Olympic competitions before the events were aired on TV. This has been caused by a number of reasons, including tape-delayed footage and advertisements running literally in the middle of some events, but the point still stands: The Internet doesn’t take commercial breaks.
News no longer has to come to us in the form of lengthy broadcasts with topics that are hit-or-miss on our personal radars. These days we have the infinite bounds of the Internet to find updates nigh-instantaneously, whether it’s through short quips through Twitter, quick blog articles or captioned images to give us the story.
So how is your brand accommodating for the fast-faced, quick consuming Internet user? For lonelybrand, it means we occasionally put out something silly or entertaining in the form of macros or interesting articles to initially draw people in, relying on quality content to keep them coming back. It could also mean putting more effort into cleverly crafting the Holy Grail of advertising these days, the viral video.
Real-time search results have broken barriers for consumers, and the opportunity is a double-edged sword in the eyes of companies and brands. Having more options means your image has to seem better than others, and it has to convey that message quickly. But of course, if you have a solid image and reputation already, it means more people will likely stumble upon you at some point.
Have you changed your marketing strategies in order to capture the ever-shrinking attention span of Internet users? Or are you sticking to your guns and hoping that traditional search will remain the pathway from consumers to your brand?
