We have all been there. We are sitting around the dinner table with friends and someone brings up the topic of Facebook. When we are confronted with the question “are you on Facebook?” (Isn’t this obvious?) We scoff and mumble, “oh, hardly ever.” But the truth is that even though we do not know it, many of us hold social media addictions, and these addictions are not the dirty type that we can keep secret from the world. If you are a social media addict, everyone knows it. But just as much as the everyday Joe is dealing with a social media addiction, we have to sit and wonder – are brands just as addicted to utilising the benefits that come with social media and the ability to connect?

As we can see, some brands thrive on social media addiction just as much as the public do. It seems that even brands can be addicted to the bright lights of social networking sites and this can sometimes result in too much of an over share of information. Some brands are just as obsessed with social media as individuals are and their social media addiction runs just as deep. Social media is a fairly new way of marketing as opposed to other marketing methods and it seems that brands are still testing the waters to see what works well and what fails miserably. What brands do know, however, is that the public constantly seek knowledge and their requests for feedback on social media cannot hold individuals back from this new level of interaction and addiction.

A brand that has taken a new spin on the addiction that individuals have to social media networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter is Pringles. Their latest campaign is focused in sharing, but not in the way that you might think. Highlighting the obsession that the public has with social media and our addiction to social networking sites, Pringles asks you to visit the site and download an “over share” button for the social networking site Facebook and when you click this button on your friends status, they will be notified of their banal or annoying status updates and will be asked to report to the Pringles website for help on their social media addiction.

Basically, Pringles are poking fun at the sharing aspect of social media networking as well as some people’s addiction to the sites and therefore going against the grain on what it is to connect. We should not forget though that even though they are poking fun at social media, they are in fact asking their customers to interact with social media platforms in order to mock others.

There is no doubt that social media is here to stay, for a while at least. We are now determining how we see and how we judge brands according to their social media campaign as opposed to their traditional marketing methods, and we should not be blamed for the fact that we judge a book by its social media cover. Social media is effective owing to various factors but also because it feeds our addictive nature. We have become like fish with a three second memory and the only way to keep us engaged is to keep us occupied, and as we all know, our social media (addiction) can occupy us for hours on end.

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