The rule of the multipliers

When we are talking about multipliers in a social media context we are referring to the number of times a message will be made visible to other users in the network. If you post a message on Facebook, that message will spread out and be visible in a number of walls / timelines of people that follow your company (or yourself) and friends of friends. Easy.

Now, as you can imagine, the multipliers are controlled by the social media company. It is enclosed in their social algorithm. And the algorithm (and multiplier) that serves a social media when it is in its early stages of business and is searching the gain penetration and show relevance to its future consumers (and customers) is very different to the one of a social media company that is already established and is trying to generate turnover by doing business - namely when that business also comes from selling "promote your message" products. Like Facebook. Or Google+. Or Youtube. These companies have already changed their multipliers to ensure the messages or videos users / companies post reach a much smaller number of viewers then did some years ago.

So, what I am saying here is really simple. The days in which you could post a business message on a social media and expect it to easily generate buzz for free are gone - to get those figures you have to pay. Even the campaigns that have generated more word of mouth in the last 3 years (and I am thinking about campaigns of brands like Old Spice and Axe) have relied in 90%+ of paid content to generate their buzz.

But, after all, we all know that there are no free lunches, right?