Five things I learned from talking to advertising legend Sir Martin Sorrell about social media

I’m quite sure you saw what happened on Facebook earlier this year. Over 600 brands pulled or paused their advertising on that platform simply because they were consistently acting too slowly to remove hate speech. The boycott was an attempt by companies to put pressure on a tech giant to act differently.

Facebook is a leader in an industry which now accounts for many billions of dollars a year. Facebook is indisputably powerful and this raises questions about whether it is indeed a friend or foe to social cohesion.

But just how powerful is Facebook and how much influence do social media companies wield?

I was fortunate enough to be able to discuss this with advertising legend Sir Martin Sorrell on Mentorit.TV. Sorrell is the founder of WPP - the world's largest advertising and PR group. He remains the largest personal shareholder. He’s also set up S4 Capital, a purely digital marketing company worth over ￡1.5bn. There are few people, therefore, who understand the digital landscape as well as Sir Martin.

These are the main lessons I learned from my interview with him.

1. Social media is supremely powerful

Sir Martin told me that he believes social media is supremely powerful nowadays. He’s not the only one to believe this; I’d recommend watching the documentary The Social Dilemma on Netflix to find out more about the scale of their power.

The six big platforms - Google, Facebook, Amazon, Tencent, Alibaba and TikTok - dominate. They account for the vast proportion of digital advertising and there are hundreds of billions at play. The digital market, in general, also represents about half of the advertising market at around $250bn.

We all know that these platforms are hugely influential but Sir Martin Sorrell truly shows just how powerful and well-moneyed they are.

2. These social media companies are publishers

There’s been a lot of debate about whether these big companies are publishers, media companies or tech companies. They always say they are tech companies. But, in essence, they are publishers.

Sir Martin Sorrell reflected on the 600 brands pulling or pausing their advertising on the Facebook platform. These companies, believing that Facebook is a publisher, think that the tech giant should be responsible for their content.

Despite saying that Facebook has made strenuous efforts to address hate speech, he believes the underlying principle that they do hold a responsibility for what is published on their platform.

3. Boycotting social media companies isn’t effective

Sir Martin doesn’t think that boycotting platforms like Facebook is the most effective way of getting change from a social media platform. His own view is that a more effective approach than boycotting is to engage in a dialogue with Facebook.

He has not advised clients to boycott Facebook and, instead, has encouraged the implementation of pressure in a constructive way.

4. It’s extremely intelligent for government officials to use Twitter as a communication tool

Sir Martin Sorrell thinks it is presidential to tweet. Trump will be happy to hear that!

He mentioned Roosevelt’s fireside chats and Kennedy’s powerful TV presence and said they were ways of communicating directly with the people. At the heart of what President Trump is doing, says Sorrell, is extremely intelligent. He doesn’t think that his messages are always sensible and can sometimes be inflammatory.

But, the principle, he said, is an effective way to communicate to your base and supporters efficiently.

5. Digital is king

The big industries that are benefiting at the moment are tech, healthcare, in-home entertainment, gaming and online shopping. There’s a V-shaped recovery in these areas.

With online shopping, one third of the US population are trying shopping for essentials and groceries for the first time online. So, consumers are engaging more and more with online and digital transformation.

Media owners, also, are moving from analogue to digital much faster. Just look at Disney+. They blew their original prediction of 60 to 90 million subscribers by 2024 out of the water by achieving 60 million in less than a year.

Digital markets, according to Sir Martin, are performing well and are painting a somewhat optimistic picture.

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In addition to offering a valuable insight into the power of social media, Sir Martin also offered some incredibly valuable life advice for new graduates.

His words of wisdom, given to him by his own father, are to find an industry you enjoy and a company within that industry you’d love to work at. Once you’re there, build a reputation - internally and externally.

Then, after a period of time, have a go on your own. If that’s not for you, he recommended, invest in the company you’re in because that’s the company you’ll know most about.

Beyond that, he suggested learning Chinese and how to code. Spanish might be helpful too.

I hope that this list has answered some questions you might have had about social media. It answered some of mine. But the question still remains, is Facebook a friend or a foe for social cohesion? Let me know what you think in the comments.

- Patricia Falco Beccalli