- Have any questions?
- 02 7200 2179
- media@commsroom.co
- Have any questions?
- 02 7200 2179
- media@commsroom.co
Mitchell Dye, Acting Coordinator of External Corporate Communications at Greater Geelong, delves into the societal ripple effects of social media and how it shapes public discourse.
Mitchell will share his expertise as a speaker at the upcoming Public Sector Comms Week 2025.
Social media has changed the way the public opinion is shaped. While I’m a big believer that the fundamental principles of media and communications still apply to social media, things move more quickly on socials and can reach a bigger audience rapidly. That presents opportunities for communications professionals, along with potential threats.
Social media also promotes much more interactivity, and a two-way conversation.
It can lead to audiences becoming more fragmented, as algorithms show people content that will lead to them spending more time on social media, therefore, they are more likely to only engage with content that is both of interest to them and agrees with their standpoint. This has the effect of creating echo chambers, and it’s something we all have to be aware of.
As someone old enough to have engaged with social media in a few different ways, it’s been interesting to watch things change over the decades as platforms have matured. How each generation uses social media is quite different. The platforms people are on and the type of content they post, share and interact with varies. Even a preference towards text and photo-based content as opposed to short-form video varies across the generations.
For example, older generations, such as baby boomers and Generation X seem to prefer compelling photos and copy, and have cited keeping in touch with family and loved ones as a key reason for using social media. On the other hand, the trend with Generation Z is definitely more towards short-form video content, and they love engaging with influencers more so than the older generations.
As communications professionals, it’s vital to understand who you are talking to and to tailor your message to them, reaching them where they want and in the format and mediums they resonate with.
In my experience, there are some malicious actors who spread misinformation, but for the most part, it seems to occur when things start with a small grain of truth and develop and spread quickly in the echo chamber of social media.
Things can blow out of proportion very quickly, which is why communications professionals have to seize the narrative early when possible, and engage in an honest and transparent way right from the beginning.
I personally find that I learn best by doing. We all know that the digital space is changing quickly, so if there’s a new aspect of digital communications that I’m not familiar with, I push myself outside my comfort zone and experiment and engage, which is exactly how I learnt the digital skills back in the 90s and 2000s that still hold me in good stead today.
Read also: Sophie Winter on purposeful communication in a cluttered online world
There are incredible resources out there like YouTube where you can learn new skills very quickly with incredibly talented presenters who teach all aspects of digital communications in a very engaging way.
I know the digital world can be daunting at first, but once you just in and engage it always gets easier – we all just have to push ourselves to take that first step sometimes.
The online world and offline worlds just keep getting more connected with each other, but we need to understand that things online often tend to be more dramatic than they are in the real world. For instance, it’s very to get thousands of people to say they’ll attend an event in person, but often the in-person attendance doesn’t translate.
People behind a keyboard will say things that they’d never say to someone in person.
That doesn’t mean that the online world doesn’t impact the offline world, it absolutely does, but perhaps not quite as dramatically as it may seem – things in the online world seem to moderate better.
We all need to push ourselves to engage widely with a broad range of content and platforms. If I could change one thing, it would be force people to fight the natural instinct to just engage with content which reinforces our own views.
I think people would be better informed, and some of the challenges we see with online communications would moderate themselves better.
I’m looking forward to sharing my experience in social media as someone who has worked in this space for over fifteen years. It always fascinates me to see how far things have come, and to think about what the likely next steps might be to give us a chance to get ahead. I’ll be sharing the nature of how social media shapes public opinion, and what we as communications professionals can gain from those insights.
What I really enjoy about these types of conferences is the opportunity to speak with communications professionals right across the country (and the globe). I often discover that we’re not alone in the challenges that we face, but it’s also vital to learn about how others have overcome them so we can all understand best practice. In addition to sharing my own insights, I’m looking forward to the question time at the end so that people in the session can share their perspectives on what we’ve discussed.
