By Hannah Jones
Watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory when I was younger and cringing at Veruca Salt’s classic rendition of “I Want It Now”, I promised my mum that I would never turn into the brat who demands the world at the click of a finger.
Well guess what? We’re all slowly but surely turning into just that.
For my friends and I, growing up with technology has married us to the idea of always staying connected. Entertainment, information and communication with each other is one click away – all day, every day – which has resulted in a “must have it right now” mindset.
We no longer need to go and buy DVDs – we have iTunes and Netflix; we don’t need to watch Saturday night TV on Saturday night – we have on demand; we don’t need to wait for the radio bulletin for breaking news – we have Twitter.
In the age of modern technology, brands are working hard to meet our impatient demand to experience quick pleasure and easy fulfilment, and social platforms are at the forefront.
With Snapchat, Instagram Stories, WhatsApp Status and Facebook Stories providing live, instant access to events, products, celebrity lifestyles and countries across the globe, it’s left us wondering why these social media channels are doing a Mr Salt on us and granting our demands.
Stories
Introducing Stories. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, it’s essentially the same feature found across Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook. It allows you to upload photos and videos that disappear after 24 hours. Snapchat is an app solely dedicated to this feature whereas on Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, they appear at the top of your feeds.
It perfectly quenches our thirst for instant, live access to other people’s lives and whilst social media has encouraged us to document our every move online, research has suggested that we are now deciding to do something purely because we want to share it online later.
The days of heading to Jessops to get our holiday photos printed and taking them home and putting them under the stairs to gather dust are dwindling. We’re simply too impatient for that! We’re now going beyond documenting our lives and saving memories to creating memories influenced by the response we hope to get on social media.
And with so many of us choosing to share our child’s first time on the potty, our oh-so healthy chicken Caesar salad lunch and our hot dog legs from the beach in Tenerife, the amount of content available to use at the touch of a button has left us spoilt for choice.
Now, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with sharing our lives with our friends and followers online. It’s human nature to be curious. We need to feed our brains with something and random details about other people’s lives make for easy viewing! That’s exactly why Stories are working so well.
It works because we’re willing to share our moments more and more. And the selling point for Stories is that whatever we share is disregarded the next day. It can’t be traced on our social footprint. So, if you want to share a snap of your glass of wine on Saturday night, but don’t want to be reminded of it come Sunday evening, then like a little cyber fairy God mother, when the clock strikes 12 – it’s gone.
Not only are we looking for instant access to people’s lives but brands are also reaping the rewards of Stories. Sharing photoshoots, office tours and exclusive new product information, we’re made to feel like VIP’s with special behind the scenes access right from our front rooms.
Like it or not, we’re all slowly becoming little social media Veruca Salt’s demanding more and more from the people we follow and the brands we love. Some may argue that with Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and Snapchat offering pretty much the same feature, social media platforms are all starting to look very similar as a result, but aren’t platforms just sticking with what works?
Either way, we’re stamping our feet and social channels are sticking their hands in their pockets and giving us exactly what we want.
Here at No Brainer, we’re firm believers that when it comes to story-telling, one size most definitely doesn’t fit all and as a social-savvy team of storytellers, it’s our job to make sure that features like this are high on our radar, so you don’t have to.
