Is Social Media Marketing Becoming Too Cluttered?

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and more, do you feel, as a marketer, that social media has become too cluttered? With so many platforms to reach out to and with so many different approaches, for a budding brand, the results should be tremendous, right? However, there’s exactly where things go awry.

Despite there being tons of platforms to reach out to our potential target audience, why does it happen that conversions and engagements keep hitting a new rock bottom every single time? The answer is simple – social media is becoming too cluttered. There are thousands of people online and social media is a treasure-chest for engagement, agreed; but the truth is people are no longer bothered about the advertisements and sponsored posts unless it concerns them.

The popularity of a social medium is no longer a criterion for you to run your advert and gain traction. People have increasingly starting to become passive consumers of information, where in people will be online but with their chat box turned off. Do you picture a persona in your mind? Does it sometimes remind you of yourself? All passive users do is go through their newsfeed and be very stringent in their likes. They look for posts and updates from their friends and family and once they’ve seen their posts, they don’t bother seeing anything else, let alone the posts from brands.

Also, with Facebook’s algorithms constantly undergoing changes, it also becomes more cluttered for marketers to bring their posts to the forefront and let users know about their existence. While big companies take the limelight most of the time, start-ups usually stumble in the vastness of social media.

So, What Sells?

Personally, I’ve noticed that four types of information share a viral quotient – gossips and celebrity news, politics, controversies of any genre, and cats/dog videos (not kidding). Unless your brand post is not anything related to this, you can’t expect your updates to become viral. If you go check your newsfeed right now, you’ll see that 90% of the post that are viral fall under any of the above mentioned categories. You’d be more prompted to click on What Chris Shah Rukh Khan said to his co-star will Stun you post than others.

However, one recent ad that’s making waves online is from Vicks, which came up with a brilliant commercial on a mother (with a twist). Despite it being a post from a brand and the fact that it was over 2 minutes long, the ad became viral because it connected emotionally with audiences. That’s the reason why most brands right now attempt to capitalize on users’ emotions than taking a conventional route. Snapdeal’s commercials, Tanishq’s commercial and Google’s adverts all share a common thread - human emotion.

So, the answer is pretty straightforward. If you want to make your way through the online clutter and make a mark (no matter how small), connect emotionally with your target audience and you’ll earn their love. If you can’t, you cal always approach the pros!