Recently, there has been a sort of outpouring of reports about just how much America relies on social media. The information goes that a social media company wields considerable power in today’s society, and possibly not just for commercial marketing.
For instance, a study by the Pew Research Center finds that more than a quarter of all Americans look to two or more social media sites for information about current events. Meanwhile, other researchers are looking to these sorts of statistics to examine how social media contributes political polarization and the proliferation of rather extreme views.
They say that great power brings with it great responsibility, and a social media company may occasionally come face-to-face with this adage if it’s tasked with carrying out a commercial campaign that could also have an impact on public discourse.
Fortunately, these two roles are usually separate, at least for the most part. But there is no denying that there is a growing overlap between social media and news. This means that a social media company will increasingly be expected to serve in capacities that used to be reserved for public relations writers and maybe even journalists.
Pink Shark Marketing is certainly aware of this overlap, so it is constantly striving to integrate news-oriented advertising campaigns and traditional social media functions. And while we have no particular desire to seek out clients and projects that look for profit in the manipulation of dialogue about current events, it is quite sobering to know that we might have that power.