by SEO & Affiliate Consultant
M. Thomson
For years now, small print has been used in traditional advertising to disclose terms and conditions of services, offers and statistics often describes as "sneaky".M. Thomson
Take two of the biggest traditional advertising streams, television and radio; there are many television adverts that claim their goods have been "voted best product in a recent survey". However, when you look closely at the small print at the bottom of the screen, you might discover that the survey has been taken from a small sample of people with no mention of whether those people are supposed to represent a cross section of society. You will hear an advert for around 5 seconds, then be bombarded with 10 seconds of small print disclosing the terms and conditions at one hundred words per second.
Could it be that due to the meteoric rise in social media websites online, claims made by advertisers will become increasingly open to scrutiny in future? If so, then it's possible that the result will be an increase in the levels of honesty employed in traditional advertising.
Looking at the typical consumer purchasing cycle, there has been a gap between the advert and purchase that has only occasionally been plugged by "word of mouth", which made this form of advertising pretty effective. Word of mouth will always be a strong influence on consumers. Is social media now starting to plug that gap?
Users (you are only a consumer if you make a purchase) are increasingly turning to social media websites before they buy in order to assist them with their choices.
Don't stop the press, this is no secret, a user finding out more detail on a product has the potential to kill off whatever gains the small print within traditional advertising has achieved and more and more often it is social media websites that are supplying this information.
Why are people using these sites more for this type of information? Well, social media websites rarely lie; these user powered websites often "tell you how it is" with zero fluff or "small print". Many of the users who power these social media websites are full time employees by day and super human part time investigators by night aiming to uncover the truth behind the product and its small print.
A prime example of this is Martin Lewis' moneysavingexpert.com - its consumer advice has saved Britons millions and rocketed its and his popularity to extreme stardom - Google Trends reveals "Martin Lewis" is more frequently searched for more than "David Beckham", our very own golden balls!
Overall, bigmouthmedia expects to see a drop in the amount of misleading advertising that is found offline corresponding with the growth of social media. Of course, grand claims and misleading statistics will always exist and in some cases, small print is required by law.
Advertisers must ask themselves the question "should I really use small print, and how will it make my potential consumers feel about my brand?" If I were an advertiser, I would turn to the social landscape to see what users are conveying online about my brand. With this research, you can then adjust your advertising streams and content accordingly, hopefully omitting small print.
