In economics, signalling focuses on the ability of one party to effectively convey information about itself to another party. That was relatively easy pre-Internet. Brands simply pushed claims into the marketplace through a range of set-play media actions and waited for consumers to react. The ability of a signal to reach an audience rested almost entirely on the message itself and the media budget.
The reason why companies have worked photocopy business plans for so long is because they never thought to work any other way. It just seemed too risky.
We’re all tempted to do it at some stage: to overstate the advantages; to push the benefits of what is on offer past the point of credibility; to state that what we are doing or offering is better than what others are offering, but with no substantiation for that belief.
We sometimes forget that with social media, it is not about the destination, it is about the journey; a journey that is defined by the goals a brand hopes to realize when it engages a network of individuals. Viewing “social” as an “emerging communications” medium is like calling water wet. Let’s lay it out here: We are social.
We are the sum of our choices. In many ways, what we choose is a declaration of who we are and our choices even impact how we relate to each other.
