Facebook is one of the most successful ideas ever launched in the history of marketing. The reason: it’s all about you. Other marketing strategies are about you being like (or not like) someone or something else. (Think “Old Spice Deodorant commercials” – You can smell like a man if you buy our products.)
Think about it. The whole point of Facebook is to get other people to find, read, and like what you have say. For some, that in of itself is the reward. For example, many friends of mine post political or theological musings to convince their audience. Awesome! Also, almost everyone on Facebook posts pictures to share with their friends. Also awesome!
To others, though, having people find, read, and like their posts is only half the goal. For many others, including myself a lot of times, Facebook is about acceptance.
The more friends you have, the more important you feel.
The more photos you have, the more popular you are. (Make sure they’re good pictures, or we’ll un-tag ourselves, right?)
If you comment on someone else’s profile picture, hopefully they’ll comment on yours.
The wittier of a status you can concoct, the smarter people will think you are.
Are we really this obsessed with ourselves?
Those are some excellent thoughts, Joe. The whole situation becomes more amazing when one starts applying the "You-Perspective" filter to all marketing strategies; it's *everywhere*. Facebook is unique because it brought the focus of "You" into the social public alongside many of our friends/acquaintances on the site. Facebook, at once, allows for individuality while ironically also placing each person on a level playing field with artificial standards of importance (like the ones you mentioned) at our finger-tips. I guess the answer is, to varying degrees: yes -- we really are that obsessed with ourselves ^_^
ReplyDeleteGreat post!