For some, social media seemed to be the solution for how companies could market their wares. You sell something to one person, and that person passes on their good experiences to their social network. That way, you could influence many people with relatively little effort.
Not so.
Friend networks on facebook are hardly interested in each other's tastes. Only when it comes to classical music and jazz do friend networks seem to adopt each other's stuff, but otherwise it's every man for himself. Researchers at Harvard University showed this in a four-year study among 400 students with a Facebook profile. It showed that similarities in taste mainly play a role when online friendships are formed, but no longer play a role once the friendship is established.
Researcher Kevin Lewis says his research does not detract from the proposition that ideas, beliefs and behaviour patterns can easily spread through social networks: "that just does not mean it is an inescapable social phenomenon. After all, just how many of your friends' preferences and beliefs do you not share, or know at all?" Enough in any case, to make the role of social networks in influencing each other's tastes negligible.
This is contrary to the many publications that say precisely that social networks play an essential role in the new marketing. Entire departments are being set up precisely to use social networks to influence taste. After all, we already form those networks on the basis of gender, political preferences and taste, but meanwhile do little to influence them. A waste of money, then?
"For businesses, of course, social media is invaluable," says Lewis. "It's about knowing who is befriending which people why. With that, you can better weigh your decisions, and focus on customers who are actually already there, rather than trying to influence the choice of a nondescript group of potential customers."
Unless you do something with classical music. Or with jazz.
Source: Wired
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