Review: Viral Communication, monday session

Submitted by Meskawi, 14-04-2010

After the public session, which was held at the Piet Zwart Insitute, the professional session took place at Teldesign. The session started with a short recap of the day's presentations and moved to an open discussion which focused on social media and its implications on the internet in general.

Nicole Sanberg (NL - IN10) opened the session with her presentation about the impact of social media on the traditional perceotion of brands and advertising. She says that we use the social media to exchange ideas and to be in control. Being in control means less power for brands and advertising. The social web is not about the brands. It's about what the consumer wants. The consumer gives shape and defines the brands, rather than having the brands already defined and imposed onto her. While the consumer is in control, the web becomes an social operating system the landscape of which is shaped by the consumer. The web is therefore not a destination.

Following Nicole was AMOS from VM-People (DE) who uses viral communication to construct a multidimensional campaign for his clients. He's set up a list of important consideration points when implementing viral communication as part of your campaign. One of which is to talk to the cosumer at eye level. Not a top-down monologue, but a dialogue between equals. His approach to viral communication is not exclusively digital. He puts non-digital media to use and swings back and forth between the analog and the digital. "No matter how digital it gets - it all ends up in the real world".

Eddy Salfischberger (NL - 105 advertising) emphasized the historical aspect of social media saying that "social media are of all times, but only in this age did they become sophisticated" through the available technology. As such people have super social powerand that is recognized but advertisers who try to get closer to their audience through social media as they can now target the right audience. With traditional mass media you take waste for granted. With the social media of now, waste is a choice. The best way to control your waste as an advertiser and to get as specific as you want in targeting your audience, you should dive in social media, learn and adjust.

Marc Schweiger (DE - Undschweiger), research fellow at Piet Zwart Institute, gave a brief summary of his day presentation entitled 'Welcome to inspiration society'. As an advertiser, he is constantly looking for ways to use the space between commercial economies and sharing economies. That space he calls 'hybrid economies': economies that use sharing and make it profitable. Then he moved on to ask questions about ownership, production and regulation. 'If everybody is an artist you'd better own the gallery'. In other words, when the majority is producing content, someone should make use of that and profit from it. That's what advertising can try to achieve: let the audience contribute, and amass the results.

Marc's presentation was then followed by three short presentations from Godan Savicic (Moddr Labs - WORM) who talked about his 'Web 2.0 suicide machine which is intented to delete profiles on social media sites without leaving any traces of it ever existing; Winanda hendriks (NL - Prfum) about exploring new marketing tools by using social media; Darija Medic (student at Piet Zwart Institute) about her project 'H1N1 as a social network', drawing parallels with social media sites and the spreading of a virus.

The open discussion that followed raised important questions starting with managing the internet: can it regulate itself? Can it act as self-regulating organism? Or should it be owned by some entity and fall into a hierarchic system of regulation? Many examples show that a self-regulating system or community can actually exist and become a successful model (take for isntance Augmented Reality Games (ARG) such as I Love Bees). The utopian view of the internet is that of a flat system where every person has her say, everyone is equal and democracy rules. On the other hand, you see many examples of how it can go the other way. Successful models grow and evolve based on the idea of sharing, openness and equality end up being sold to corporations and therefore forsaking the very concept that made them big. Marc Schweiger talked about the internet as infrastructure which could be regulated, like the actual infrastructures (roads, electricity, water, etc.), by a similar model to a government.

The other big question raised was that of ownership of identity. Once you fill out a profile online, which basically describes who you are and shows your identity, you are not the actual owner of that profile: it's the Facebooks and LinkedIns of the internet who do. As long as it is MY indentity, why can't I be the one that owns it? When will there be a standard that regulates this question of ownership on an international scale?

On this bombshell, the evening session was closed.