Why Social Needs To Be A Key Component of Every Marketing Program. Before Bill Gates, before Steve Jobs, before Netscape Navigator turned the website into a communication hero, there was Marshall McLuhan. Long considered the father and leading prophet of the electronic age, McLuhan explored the effects of technology on popular culture in the 1960’s. Yes, the 1960’s – long before the Internet existed. In fact, television was still in its infancy when McLuhan pronounced that “The medium is the message” and talked about the “global village” (another phrase he is credited with coining). As a college student, McLuhan’s ideas fired my imagination and compelled me to rethink about how people communicate. McLuhan’s thinking underscored a major paradigm shift. This shift has taken us on an incredible journey of discovery on how human beings prefer to communicate. At OMMA Global Conference in New York, I felt the presence of Marshall McLuhan again and the beginnings of a new paradigm shift. As I listened to the experts talk about the influence of social media like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, I realized just how much communication has evolved in the last 50 years. The medium is no longer the message. People are now the medium. When you communicate with someone on a social network, you are not just talking to an individual. You are talking to everyone that they are connected to and communicating with. What incredible empowerment. The Internet may have been the first technology to create communities of individuals, unfettered from reliance on bureaucracies and traditional organizations. However, it is the Social Network that has taken the individual to the next level of communication influence. The words, thoughts and ideas of any individual, regardless of social standing or ethnic background, now have the power to gain hold in the public conscience and create change. We now have the complete freedom to communicate our thoughts and ideas, from mundane everyday activities to the major issues that affect the global village of the 21st century. Marshall McLuhan, of course, would have figured this out already.
- Mays Blog Post