Old fashioned thinking in this brave new world

Last week I attended a social media conference where I listened to a formidable group of speakers.

They all shared their experiences about how they were using social media in their communications.
 
They were an impressive bunch and I gained some interesting insight.

But I came away feeling there was one thing was missing from the agenda of the day.

And to me it may be the most important aspect when creating a campaign.

The missing topic of discussion was the value of a big idea.

Speakers referred to campaigns that had been famously impactful – like Tippex on Youtube or The Old Spice campaign.

And it was social media was hailed as the reason for the success.

But for me that misses the point.

I don’t think it was social media that made these campaigns successful.

Why?

Because social media is purely a channel.

It enables a conversation.

But the channel itself isn’t the conversation.

People don’t actually engage with a channel.??

They engage with the content on the channel.

And that is exactly that what made these campaigns so successful.

Killer content.

Creative ideas that were original, clever and engaging.

People enjoyed the content, interacted with the brands and shared the experiences with their friends.

And that is what made these campaigns go so huge.

In this brave new world of communication – it is crucial to remember that the old rules still apply.

Big ideas are still what you need if you to cut through and engage.

Concepts that surprise, make you laugh, cry, teach you something or are just totally kick-ass cool will always find an audience.

And if you get the creative thinking right – the social media channels will, of course, help them to become huge.