In today’s society, technology unquestionably infiltrates our everyday lives. Whether waiting to board a flight, visiting the doctor’s office, stopping by your local library, or waiting in line to check out at the grocery store, upon looking around you will likely observe someone gazing at a smart device. Oftentimes, that device is a smartphone and the individual is utilizing it to access and interact with social media. Just as our smart devices have become an integral part of our existence, social media has quickly permeated our daily lives and practices.
For the past 2.5 decades, various social media platforms with unique goals and purposes have made their appearance on the internet. Many have since dissolved, while others have evolved and become more robust. Nevertheless, social media networks continue to emerge and prove that they are versatile, useful, favorable, and capable of catering to just about everyone’s needs. Currently, social media is a significant component of many areas of our daily routines.
The Significance of Social Media
In past years, people sought several sources to access news, entertainment, pop culture, education, politics, connection with others, and more. Today, social media stands as a tool to retrieve all of this information and more with a quick click, swipe, scroll, and tap. Platforms that were intended to connect people and provide opportunities to share our lives have matured, now allowing us to share everything from a family recipe to breaking world news. We utilize social media as part of our daily personal lives, as a way to build relationships and find love, to support our spiritual practices, to document our professional development and achievements, as a way to supplement our health and well-being, and then some.
“Social media has become really fundamental to the way that billions of people get information about the world and connect with each other, which raises the stakes enormously.”
–Kevin Werbach
Our growing engagement with and reliance on social media attests to its prominence in our lives. Social media is no longer an internet playground of sorts. It is dynamic, constantly adapting to fulfill our needs, interests, and desires. In the words of Keith A. Quesenberry, “one thing is certain: social media is here to stay.”
The Impact of Social Media Campaigns and Movements
Although we often use social media for our personal gain, in recent years social media platforms have become a useful instrument to drive attention to a specific matter and achieve a measurable response. From social media movements to campaigns, social media has become a tool in which people craft and publish materials tailored to a specific audience.
Campaign: #ShotOniPhone
Apple’s Shot on iPhone campaign began in 2014 as a fun challenge to Apple users to take photos on their iPhones and post them to their social media platforms using the campaign hashtag for a chance to be featured on branded Apple billboards, in Apple stores, and online. Today, the campaign and hashtag still live, presently housing 24,651,540 posts on Instagram alone. This campaign took off rapidly, generating an abundance of user-generated content (UGC), which Apple then used to further promote their message.
This is a genius marketing strategy as users were prompted to share their own content for recognition, creating a database for Apple to source and reshare its user’s content. Production-wise, this strategy saved Apple time and resources, allowing them to allocate those resources elsewhere. Furthermore, this strategy has proven that Apple’s products produce high-quality, industry-standard photography and videography that any individual can create using their personal device. It has easily become one of Apple’s most recognized campaigns, increasing sales and resulting in notable #ShotOniPhone content to date, including billboards, music videos, short films, and more.
Movement: #EndSARS
Internet activism and online social movements are prevalent in our society today. Through movements including Me Too, Occupy Wall Street, and Black Lives Matter, we have learned that social media is powerful and influential, especially regarding human rights and injustice. In 2020, we witnessed many social movements incited to address various issues in our society, including the #EndSARS movement in Nigeria. This movement was started as a way to combat brutality against young people, attributed to Nigeria’s Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS).
Resembling the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, #EndSARS detailed and impacted me as a young, first-generation Nigerian-American. Both movements were “spearheaded by young demonstrators…fed up with the status quo…to fix the transgressions of previous generations.” These movements were significant in 2020 and still are, impacting and shaping the future of Nigeria, America, and the world. They both drove exposed deep-rooted, systemic issues, and drove home the point that “black lives matter everywhere that black lives are found.”
In recent years, we have witnessed the undeniable intensity that is housed within social movements and campaigns, both online and offline. Today, hashtags are more than clever phrases, they have the power to effect meaningful change. Thanks to social media, no one’s ear is too far to reach.
The Future of Social Media
Over the next 5-10 years, social media “will only grow in scale and scope,” as it has done over the past 25 years. As social media continues to evolve and adapt, it will likely become even more integrated into our daily lives and practices. In a Netflix documentary entitled, ‘The Social Dilemma,’ various participants detailed how humans and their attention are the target and focus of the businesses behind social media platforms. Therefore, we are developing a significant dependence on social media, which will only grow over time. In the years to come, social platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok will continue to grow and serve unmatched purposes in our lives, capitalizing on our likes, preferences, and interests. Meanwhile, additional platforms will likely arise, claim their niche, and latch onto our attention as well.
Sola's Thoughts 