In October of 2010, Malcolm Galdwell wrote a piece for The New Yorker on “why the revolution will not be tweeted.” I felt at the time that his critique was rather harsh; online/offline efforts are usually the most successful when we’re describing and measuring returns on social media (The 2008 US Presidential campaign remains an excellent example).
Certainly, Twitter fueled the protests in Iran, but we were prompted by Gladwell to consider this with regards to offline results of online efforts:
In the Iranian case, meanwhile, the people tweeting about the demonstrations were almost all in the West. “It is time to get Twitter’s role in the events in Iran right,” Golnaz Esfandiari wrote, this past summer, in Foreign Policy.“Simply put: There was no Twitter Revolution inside Iran.” The cadre of prominent bloggers, like Andrew Sullivan, who championed the role of social media in Iran, Esfandiari continued, misunderstood the situation. “Western journalists who couldn’t reach—or didn’t bother reaching?—people on the ground in Iran simply scrolled through the English-language tweets post with tag #iranelection,” she wrote. “Through it all, no one seemed to wonder why people trying to coordinate protests in Iran would be writing in any language other than Farsi.”
We were left to ponder if social media really had the power to affect political change around the world. Even the 2008 US Presidential election did not do that; it garnered interest and helped motivate a younger demographic to vote in the election. It didn’t change US politics or oust a regime – we were having that election anyways.
The changes happening in the Arab world right now are turning the tables on Malcolm Gladwell’s assertion. A Google marketing executive was arrested for his online AND offline involvements in the unrest in Egypt. Indeed, people were not just posting about the events online, they were organizing and sharing photos and news through Facebook and Twitter (and written in Arabic). The Egyptians organizing the events were young and educated – access to internet and devices were certainly important factors.
The larger idea, though, that we are all connected and can be called to action by capitalizing on our connectivity within social networks is not lost. It seems that these events are pushing these ideas even further.
In one word: Empowerment.
Social media is everywhere – it’s touching all parts of our lives and is increasing in its meaning in our lives. Companies will need to continue to seek to understand these behaviors and respond accordingly. It has changed and continues to change the ways we communicate. It can also propel us to take actions – from buying those shoes to donating to a specific cause to joining in a revolution.