The Sociable Consumer

Commercial engagement practices on Social Networks 

Social networks are nothing new to the average Internet-dependant teenager or corporate executive. For some time now, myriad options continue to emerge and disband, collaborate and unite in the hopes of creating a social realm that takes Jürgen Habermas’ public sphere theory to untold heights. While his notion is more formally fuelled on how perception is shaped through mass media, the idea of a global public sphere, willed only by the notions of individuals and groups and lacking a master-perennial figure disseminating information is an interesting structure to new mass media theories and sociology.

The Social Network has in fact, become a marketplace, filled with businesses and interests, each providing services and products to tens of millions of consumers. The consumers on the other hand, act within the notion of traversing digital spaces, converging on similar ideologies and moving towards interests, pre-defined and based on recommendations and needs. Their engagement practices will initially be limited to usage pre-dispositions and their own user experiences but in time will retain mastery of a social network’s functions and features in order to better sustain individual online needs.

It is within this shift of individual-titling to ownership that challenges the consumer to simplify their own daily routine and evoke a need to place greater importance on the social networking dialectic and consequently on how they navigate through their daily lives.

This realization bolstered by pre-existing brand engagement practices will define the new consumer - the Sociable Consumer.