Flickr: March of the Unemployed in Great DepressionI've been thinking about how nutty the social media space has been lately. More and more people are blogging, using Twitter, on Facebook, leveraging the network of LinkedIn, etc., There are services popping up all the time. Content is being created at a frantic pace.
It's only going to get worse.
As consumers, how the heck are we going to find the value in these communities if it's cluttered with people and content that provides no value? On the other end, how are brands going to make connections with consumers if their target audience is so turned off by the noise?
The answer, in my opinion, is a social media depression. Let me give some context before I explain what I mean.
Go back in your memory bank or google the early 1900s. Things were "all good" as they say back then. People had jobs. People were eating. The country was busting at the seams. "Stuff," for the most part, was available in abundance.
Then the great depression hit. Businesses were closed. People lost jobs, their homes, their families and in some cases their lives.
Now, I don't think that an over abundance of blog posts is going to kill anyone, but here's my point: at some point, the lights will flicker and the party will be over. It's going to equivalent to the dot-com bust. At some point we are going to see a drop off in social media adoption. Things will flatten, mostly because there's just too much to read. People are going to want to keep it simple. Those that will win and beat the depression, will be those that keep content fresh, engaging and in the wheel house of those that they are marketing to. It's not brain surgery, but my gut is telling me that social media is becoming a big content glutton and at some point, those at the table -- consumers -- are going to get full.