A whopping 22 million people in Canada use social media regularly.
And wherever the public is, advertisers are close behind. Because of the recent press coverage of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, people have become more aware of just what advertisers can do with the information we share online. But for social media marketer Kelly Darwin, this is progress, bringing people one step closer to making the most of their internet connection.
“People knew that [social media sites] collected your data. But I don’t think they realized how much that info is worth,” Darwin explains.
Cambridge Analytica is a political consulting firm that reluctantly became front page news in early 2018. The private company was caught selling information they collected about Facebook users in order to power political campaigns and sway votes during major geopolitical events last year, including the US presidential election and the Brexit referendum.
Darwin is one of the founders of Seriously Creative. The Victoria marketing agency launched its first Facebook campaign in 2006. But Darwin says that the most significant changes in social media marketing in recent history have come about in the last 3 months.
“We’ve seen the biggest change in the last 8 - 12 weeks, with Facebook making moves to stop what they’re calling ‘fake news,’ in order to bring the experience back to a more personal one versus the business-driven model it is now.”
Darwin thinks that targeted advertising can be a good thing. “If you’re getting ads picked for you, you’re only going to see things that you’re interested in. So the experience of being on social media becomes more unique to you, more personal.”
That makes social media a powerful tool users can harness to customize their lives, as long as they’re aware that what they’re looking at is advertising.
“Part of it is being aware of how the content you see looks. The photo fits the story better, the images are well lit, and the content has proper grammar and is well written,” he says.
“These sites are real tools that our kids can use to connect with people around the globe. It’s a different generation,” he adds. “But as long as we teach our kids how to use social media responsibly, then hopefully we can improve the entire system, not just the individual user.”
Adapting to a social media world is also an adjustment for the advertisers on the other side of the screen. Seriously Creative found that switching their internet to TELUS PureFibreTM has helped them keep up.
TELUS PureFibre is an advanced fibre optic internet network that offers businesses and residents high speed and reliable internet with benefits like symmetrical upload and download speeds of up to 150 Mbps, so they can keep up with the demands of today’s digital age.
“As a web development company, we move a lot of big files around constantly as we work. But the speed, since we’ve moved to fibre optic internet has never been an issue,” he says.
TELUS PureFibre also supports Business Connect, a voice-over-fibre telephone connection which gives businesses the ability to access their phone apps and office databases no matter where they are.
“Because social media is so smart phone driven, and this content is generated using our phones, being able to connect to our corporate phone number on all our devices using Business Connect solved a whole bunch of privacy and speed issues,” explains Darwin.
“It’s our job to keep up with the social media revolution, because there’s no going back,” he laughs.
To find out more about what TELUS PureFibre can do for your business, visit telus.com/business.
Stay connected to Seriously Creative at seriouslycreative.ca.