As we race towards the next edition of the Malvern Festival of Innovation, we are stepping up our social media engagement to help market the event as widely as possible. Today this activity is a necessary part any campaign, and as all business owners will know, the spectrum of platforms available is daunting. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, Blogger, What’s App, Instagram, Flickr, MailChimp, to name but a few of the more well known ones. Each has its nuances, each its own demographic, and each its own acceptable (n)etiquette.
Moreover, campaigns are no longer the monologue of a billboard or flier. They are two-way conversations in which the target audience responds, interacts and engages. This is a 24-7 activity requiring the stamina of a marathon runner to stay the course, the agility of a sprinter to respond quickly, and frankly the skills of a decathlete to navigate across all the platforms.
Just last week Facebook reported that it had over 1 billion users on line in a single day. That’s a significant proportion of the world’s population; especially when you remember that the global population must include some people who are very young, some who are very old, and some who are living in really quite remote and undeveloped areas of our planet.
Is it therefore all getting too much? Has innovation in this space finally surpassed the human brain’s ability to cope with all this activity? And as was indicated in a BBC news piece this week, its not so much that we are just overloaded, but rather that we are addicted to all the stimulation and won’t switch off.
The good news is that at some point someone will come up with a new idea that eases the situation again for us all. Until that happens, your sanity may only be saved by pressing the off button and relishing the short-lived silence before switching it all back on again so you don’t miss something important.
Adrian Burden, Festival Founder
Malvern Festival of Innovation 