How Social Media Influences The Experience Economy

The experience economy is pretty straightforward: consumers are spending money on experiences instead of products. And it’s not a new concept. The idea was originally introduced in 1998, when B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore wrote:

“From now on, leading-edge companies – whether they sell to consumers or businesses – will find that the next competitive battleground lies in staging experiences.”

And that is inevitably the truth now–21 years later! A survey by Bain showed that poor customer experience caused 80% of customers to leave a brand. And 84% of consumers say that “being treated like a person, not a number, is very important to winning their business“.

As consumers, we seek experiences in-store and online. And online, those experiences are conveyed over social media. Instagram’s stories alone are used over half a billion users every day as of January 2019.

And the reality is that the rise of social media and the simultaneous ballooning of the experience economy is not a coincidence. While Pine and Gilmore called it in 1998 with their prediction of the importance of the experiences, social media has inflated the desire to share our stories and experiences in present age.

So, of course, we all keep sharing our experiences. And what happens when we see someone else’s incredible experiences? We want some of our own.

We are all running in a social media feedback loop, compelled to have experiences just to share them.

So today I want to encourage you to have an experience just to have an experience. Do you feel less fulfilled if you do not share it, like the experience was not worth it? How do you overcome that feeling?