When Sally Field took the stage to accept her Oscar for ?Places in the Heart,? she notoriously gushed, ?I can’t deny the fact that you like me?right now?you like me!”
It appears to be 1985 all over again, for more reasons than one.
To start, entertainers are treating their social communications more like an acceptance speech than a press junket. Last quarter alone, the average media and entertainment brand received a staggering 9,052 inbound messages across Facebook and Twitter. Yet these same brands responded to just 6.6 percent of their fans? messages.
Ruffalo, Can You Hear Me"
In spite of audiences? growing demand for dialogue, the media and entertainment industry continues to take a dated approach to social, treating it as another channel to broadcast mostly self-serving messages. In fact, for every 1 reply given to fans, entertainment brands pump out 9 purely promotional messages. Of course, people don?t necessarily expect to be acknowledged by the likes of Mark Ruffalo in the same way that they expect to hear back from their cable company. If an actor responds, it?s a moment of surprise and delight; if a service company responds, well, that?s pretty much just par for the course (while not answering can have dire consequences).
Still, that doesn?t mean the silence of an entertainment brand can?t be just as bad.
Indeed, a growing volume of evidence (both anecdotal and empirical) suggests that Hollywood?s golden age is entering its final act. Thanks to t...