Why the Move in Social Media is Toward Reducing Noise

It seems like everyone has a blog these days and every company is cranking up the content marketing engine. Information is a dime a dozen and it’s accessible from every device and we consume more of it than ever before.

But there’s a shift taking place. Local, regional and craft movements aren’t just happening on the streets in your hometown. They’re also happening across social media.

We’re using Feedly and Pocket to collect and filter info we actually want to read and save it for later. Mailbox is helping us put off reading less important emails until tomorrow. Smart social media is allowing us to Consolidate, Segment and Simplify. Is it possible we’ve nearly come through the stage of Social Media Glutton and we will now trend toward reducing the noise?

What’s driving this?

Tribes, as so deftly labeled and described by Seth Godin, have world-changing influence due to the amplification power of online media. The issue has become over the last few of years that these groups of like-minded folks have 1) over-connected and grown to the point where “Colonies” might be a better descriptor, and 2) those “Colonies” have been so readily targeted by online advertising and marketing that the members lose their individuality and the smaller social groups, or tribes, end up lacking true identity.

Smaller social groups, due to the current social landscape, are quickly lumped together, blanket labeled and shotgun marketed.

The Response from Social Media Users Will Be

Consolidate – users will find a more central location to have their online social identity. One that is populated by their preferred social group and houses all the sharing and content capabilities they desire – pics, videos, news, check-ins, music, chat, etc.

Segment – users will put fences around the types of groups they interact with and segment the types of content they consume.

Simplify – in the end, folks will straight up reduce the number of people, groups, brands, ads, and content they interact with until a more personal and tailored experience exists. Social networks like Path are growing in popularity in spite of or because of the fact that they currently only allow 150 connections per user.

What does this mean for marketing your business?

The focus will still be on engaging, relevant content but even more so on quality over quantity. Messages will need to be even more specific – which is right and good. Mindshare will become even more premium and brand building more important. Hyper-local-social and hyper-interest-social could grow faster – see the likes of Cbusr and read more about how Google+ plays into it all.

Overall it could lead to tighter communities online and tighter communities are still great for word-of-mouth.

Where do you see social media heading? Let us know your thoughts.

photo credit: mkhmarketing

In use under Creative Commons 2.0