Trendspotting: Impact of Facebook on Consumption, Behaviour, and Culture
Facebook is just not about connecting people who work, study, and live around them. The impact of Facebook is much more than just connecting, or killing time, or increase in data/Internet usage. The best yardstick to understand the importance of Facebook is that every marketer wants Facebook as part of their marketing plan. Trust marketers to know what works and what is impactful or not :-) Broadly, the impact of Facebook on the users and the society can be categorized into 3 types - Material, Behavioural, and Cultural Material: The material impact of Facebook is all about increased consumption and buying. There is an artificial need that is created by the Facebook offerings in terms of its default features or the popular third party applications. Couple of popular consumption/buying pattern that I see amongst my friends on Facebook is in terms of purchase of Cameras (especially high end cameras) and the increase in travel. While there could be various reasons for the increased