What Do People Really Want from Social Media? Real Life Experiences
Social media isn’t what it used to be -- or, more accurately, it hasn’t turned out to be what we initially expected.
The creation of a social profile on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, or Instagram comes with the promise of connection: to friends old and new, to business partners, to art and creativity, to the global community, or perhaps to our truest selves.
But the more that the hyperkinetic social world demands our constant engagement, the more it tends to draw us away from that original promise of connection. Rather than meeting new people and experiencing new things, we are increasingly glued to our phone screens. As a result, many are seeking out new alternatives in the hopes of making more meaningful, real world connections.
Is Social Media “Meaningless”?
In many, this has bred a feeling of disillusionment with existing social networks. The Washington Post reports that teens are leaving Facebook in droves, as many as one million per year, due to that sense of alienation. This demographic is the most techno-centric group in history -- so what do they know that we don’t?
“People don’t have to hang out with their friends [because of social media],” as the teen brother of the WashPo reporter put it. “They can just see what they’re doing… People seem to be less and less social.”
This statement hits upon the great paradox of social media: these platforms have become worlds unto themselves, disconnected from their real-world applications, thereby preventing us from engaging with others in materially grounded ways.
As a result, consumers have come to value experiences that happen in real life (IRL) and apps that facilitate them more than ever before.
What Do People Want From Social Media?
This question has tormented internet marketers (and social platform designers) for years. They’ve flung every feature, perk, and platform at millennials in order to see what sticks, hoping to “crack their code”, as Adage observes. In a world in which social media users are eternally bombarded with digital content, the answer to this question is much simpler than it may seem:
We want autonomy -- a way to find new friends, contacts, and experiences without social media owning us. The fact that 72% of millennials would rather spend their money on experiences than material things supports this assertion. Quite simply, we want a platform that helps to enrich our real-world lives, not detract from them.
That’s the guiding principle behind our new social platform, Netaround. We know that no social media platform can be a jack of all trades; we’ve focused instead on one simple goal: helping people build actionable social networks with other like-minded individuals around them.
The idea is simple: see who’s in your immediate area or “Zone” -- this could be your apartment building, a networking event, an industry conference, or even a friend’s birthday party -- and see if they want to connect. You can create or join a zone within a designated radius, instantly connecting with those around you and opening a seamless channel for communication.
With Netaround, you can cut through the noise of meaningless digital connections, building an IRL network of like-minded individuals -- and experiencing life in real-time.
