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Balancing social capital with mindfulness on behalf of our clients

August 23, 2018/Rachel Hargrave
Social capital is one of those phrases which didn’t really exist before the media revolution; or at least it did not exist in its current definition.

It refers to the need which this generation – Generation Y- has to function as a social group and share a sense of identity, understanding and values.  It has played a part in many brand-marketing plans but the way in which it is being exploited may be starting to change.

Up until fairly recently, the big driver was The Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) and many advertisers played on this fear amongst its audience, making them believe that purchase, use and publicly- shared pride in ownership of their brand was the only way to be accepted by their all-important peer group.  The idea of promoting products in this way is nothing new – readers closer to our age (the RDZ collective age) will remember many an ad from the past suggesting that if you weren’t keeping up with the Jones’ then you were being left behind.  But, of course, the advent of social media and world-wide coverage in an instant has been a gamechanger and ‘missing out’ on something which your immediate friends and neighbours have is not quite the same as not having something the whole rest of the world is enjoying.

But enter a newly-emerging trend which we first picked up in some recent research done on behalf of the restaurant chain Wagamama – a phenomena being labelled JOMO – the Joy of Missing Out!  This appears to be a kick-back at the hectic lifestyle which results from developing social capital.  Duvet days, nights in, Netflix bingeing and Deliveroo consumption are making more of an appearance on social media posts and guess what it seems to be socially acceptable to take a break and relax from the exhausting tread mill of Instagram-greatness.

Now here at RDZ PR HQ we don’t expect the massive use of social media or the desire to accumulate social capital to fade in any way.  After all, Generation Y has become very good at utilising their time well, believing that the present is a time to have as many life experiences as many as possible and leave the more boring things like mortgages to a much later date.  What we do expect to see is more of a balance between manic media usage and quality down-time and a resulting appreciation of relaxing distractions.  This, we believe, will be the main area where marketers can really show differentiation – connecting their brands with true value in the form of ‘emotional space’ away from the busy internet world – and that is why our PR client strategies will be mindful as well as awesome!

 

 

 

Social capital broadly refers to those factors of effectively functioning social groups that include such things as interpersonal relationships, a shared sense of identity, a shared understanding, shared norms, shared values, trust, cooperation, and reciprocity.

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Rachel Hargrave

Rachel has over 30 years of local, regional, national and international communications experience and expertise across a wide variety of clients including FTSE 100 companies, SMEs, micro businesses and start-ups. She also has extensive charity, Not-For-Profit and Community Interest Company experience and happily offers clients working in these areas a 50% discount on all RDZ PR rates.

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