02.04.08
Am I past it with Social Networking?
I recently received a link to an article about our boredom with social networks - it’s really interesting and got me thinking about my own use of the likes of Facebook, Bebo and MySpace. I have accounts on most of them, and use each one for different reasons. Back in the day I joined Friends Reunited, and looking back can’t believe I paid the £5 joining fee to talk to people I went to school with the previous year! Interesting to see who had stuck it out at uni and the likes but not the best way of social networking for a 17 year old student; that was best left to £1 vodka lemonades at the Student Union on a Wednesday night (ok not just Wednesday nights). After a bit of travelling I then moved on to WAYN (Where are you now), an interesting resource for getting in touch with people who were either in the same place as me or were going to be later on in my trip. It was also a good way for me to keep my mum updated on where I was and give photographic evidence that I wasn’t partying all the time.
Then in my 4th year at uni I was introduced to the wonders of MySpace; a friend of a friend of a friend had a friend who was in a band, and of course sent me a link to check them out. I was hooked. I uploaded all the information I possibly could about myself, right down to my shoe size and religion. How interesting for other people to know huh? I used it for organising nights out, introducing myself to new bands and laughing at pictures of myself and friends on nights out. Being a student it saved me a lot of money on text messages and was the first thing I logged onto when my PC was booted up. Then came Bebo, a cleaner fresher take on social networking that allowed you to make up quizes about yourself to test friends/fellow Beboers, video boxes and the all important “Share the Luv”… Simply because more of my actual friends used it I became a regular checker of my Bebo and it slowly took over from my MySpace addiction for my remaining time at uni.
After being at Equator for a few months I was introduced to Facebook by the lovely Matt at TrafficBroker and I quickly built up my friends list. I liked the fact that uploading pictures was 1,000,000% better than doing it on Bebo (which by the way still takes an age!), I could tag people and of course poke whoever I wanted. Joining groups of random addictions is of course always fun; however it’s interesting looking through my friends list that the majority of people on it are work/affiliate related. Taking a look at Bebo everyone on my list are people from uni or close friends and work colleagues. I think this is likely for two reasons (not because I want to keep work and play seperate!), but looking at the demographics of each friend lists. At the ripe old age of 23 my fellow Beboers range from 13 (my cousins) to 30 (you know who you are), whereas my youngest Facebookers are 25+. Even looking at the login page for each is so different, with Facebook having a far more grown up style. Even if both are used for similar reasons like chatting with friends, meeting new people and sharing photographs, they both have completely different styles and totally different audiences. I just happen to fall into both!
I don’t log in to either every day, generally only when I get an alert of some sort. And I can’t remember the last time I logged into MySpace, and there is no chance I would ever be able to remember my Friends Reunited password! So is the article right? Are we getting bored of social networking? Am I getting bored of social networking? The novelty has certainly worn off for me, but I do like that fact that it is still there if for whatever reason I need it. I don’t think social networking is on it’s way out - I think we will see more and more Facebook-esqe types enter the market place and from an advertiser’s perspective we are going to have to find new ways to reach our target markets, being far cleverer with creative, messaging and targeting. And the social networks themselves? I’ve gone through several of them - each one has it’s own group of users, and whilst we as individuals might outgrow them, there is always another social network round the corner for us to grow with.
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