Does Social Media create Social change or “revolution”?

There is no doubt that Social Media can change the opinion of a topic or a product/service if the peer-to-peer communication creates context and content which moves the people or the consumer. The technology power, which Social Media gives to the people and in a business context to the consumer, demands great responsibility from all parties. The positive disruptiveness, which we have seen Social Media has made in the uprising of the Egyptian people towards their leaders, and which have helped Syrian show the upraise in their country has shown the power of social Media communications in driving coverage of conflicts. You can say it has helped showing the surrounding world that governments cannot suppress their people with force without been known to the world. As a tyrant you cannot make genocides to your people without been exposed.

The latest example of this is an article on CNN by Andres Monroy-Hernadez (Mexico Murders show the influence of Internet) which shows the power of Social Media on drug cartels. The drug cartels murder numerous people in Mexico but the latest development where they hang notes to the corpses telling the world to stop using the internet to expose their destructive behaviour will create more dead people. This show, the power of Social Media and show how frightened these criminal organizations are for being, exposed in a bigger context. This is how social media create social change on a geopolitical level, helping opposition and minorities to be taken seriously.

On a business level, we have seen products having been condemned out of the market and has made it’s way back into the mindset of the consumers, by using exceptional content in a extraordinary good context. I am talking of the product Old Spice. Old Spice is in my mindset a product, which was modern in the 1960 and early 1970. It is a product, which my farther used and a product with no appeal to a younger generation. The Social Media change is here the reinvention of the product, in a humoristic context with appeal to the women, instead of the men using Old Spice. The change is not the target group that was change but the change of media and the cheapness of production – the commercial, was on YouTube. Next step in the communication/collaboration with costumer, was when they was asked to post questions directly to “The Man” and getting answers back in video format on YouTube. This was part of the tactics in the campaign. Together with the use of other Social Media as Twitter and FaceBook Old Spice body wash was, reinstalled as a product to be used, in the 21^st century by men. The commercial result has been impressive as Old Spice is the #1 body wash for men. The commercial with all the humour has been the all-time most viewed commercial on YouTube. The traffic on Oldspice.com has increased up to 300% all very impressive. This is Social Media change in rebrand a product – this is a revolutionary change in how to get a conversation among peers on the social media.

I would argue that Social Media create social change, in the geopolitical environment it even create social revolution. On the business level a smaller revolution are created – here we are not talking life and death but survival of products in a new and interesting content. I hope that Social Media will  continue to create change on numerous levels and on different platforms, this will help to change the world for the better.