Advertising and Social Media

 It was reassuring for me to find out that people have discovered how to use social media to make a profit. Sometimes, it’s good to remember the constants in life: the sky is blue, the grass is green, and there’s always people who, somewhere and somehow, are quick to jump on anything that might look like a new marketing technique. God bless ‘em. 

  I’m not knocking this practice, exactly; honestly, it’s not that much different from regular advertising, in that it’s usually out in the open and screaming for attention. Occasionally irritating, to be sure, but still obvious. It’s not necessarily a bad thing if you consider, let’s say, the increased social media presence of librarians and library-based programs; sometimes, social media is the best way to advertise your services to the community, since there’s a good chance that people will see it. That said, when content creators are being paid to sponsor certain goods and services, that’s usually enough of a sign for me to raise an eyebrow and question the validity of the content being presented. 

Like advertising, sponsoring products is nothing new--if there’s a celebrity that needs cash, you can bet that you’ll be seeing them in a commercial sometime in the future. Heck, The Flintstones used to sponsor Winston cigarettes back in the 60s, so that alone tells you how much money sponsorships bring. It wasn’t authentic back then, and it’s even less authentic now; today, you have companies that send their products to reviewers on YouTube, all for the purpose of generating buzz for the company and money for the reviewer. Sponsorship like this isn’t bad, per say--business is business--but it certainly makes the content feel less genuine and organic.