Online Status Symbols

At the end of 2010, we looked at emerging consumer trends and how they might affect brands in 2011. In the first of a series of articles, we take a closer look at one of them – online status symbols.

Social networking has exploded over the last ten years, and the industry around it has grown beyond all expectations. Facebook is currently the world’s second most popular website after Google, and  Blogspot and Twitter are in the top 10.  The tendency to flaunt online status began with displaying the number of visitors to blogs, followers on Twitter and quantity of Facebook friends.

It is widely predicted that 2011 will see social networks evolve further with increased crossover of real and online worlds. Physical expression of online status and, conversely, the online acknowledgment of physical actions will increasingly enable networkers to display to the public at large their online contributions, popularity or just how interesting they are.

Applications such as Twournal for Twitter collate Twitter updates, Tweetphotos, a cover picture and dedication into a ‘real’ journal for networkers, enabling them to look back at what they did in previous years and even offer their Twournal for sale.

And companies such as CrowdedInk.com provide Twitter and Facebook users with the chance to purchase memorabilia which show how much time they spend online. They can demonstrate physically just how popular they are through ‘social mugs’ and keyrings displaying images of all their friends and followers.

The advancement of geo-tagging has also played a part in the evolution of social networking and the overt display of online status.  For example, mobile app  foursquare enables users to ‘check in’ with their friends at various places, and track their histories. Foursquare then rewards users with online badges for how often they ‘check in’ to a certain place and ultimately allows them to become its virtual mayor.

Facebook’s Places is a similar application. Like foursquare, users are able to check in and ‘tag’ their friends in the same location, allowing other users to track them and their friends’ movements.

Clearly this is just the start - with regular advancements in technology and the high level of desire for new applications on social networking sites, this trend is one to watch. Expect online status symbols to become more prevalent both on and offline in 2011.