How did we talk to brands before social media? We called them via telephones – this seems quaint now! We emailed them – this seems slow ...
How did we talk to brands before social media?
We called them via telephones – this seems quaint now!
We emailed them – this seems slow now!
We chatted with them via online chat tools – I still do this, with Amazon.
What happens now? We tweet to the brand.
But we have always talked about brands, between ourselves, and then on social media, eventually.
Brands have disproportionate power in talking to us (broadcasting, ideally – not “talking”, per se), while we had very limited power to talk about brands in turn. Social media upended that power equation completely.
So now we use social media for assorted things when it comes to brands – customer care conversations, annoyances (petty, and big), grievances, experiences (good and bad), among others.
An offshoot of this upturning of the power equation is the boycott or canceling of brands as a way to make them comply with our demands.
The tactic, in the offline world, may seem something like this: you go to the brand’s headquarters, stand outside with a placard that says, “Boycott this brand!” and you call anyone and everyone who passes by. More people join and soon a mob manifests itself, all holding the same placard. The company’s boss looks down from her window worried and calls for a meeting of the...
