Interesting social experiments

So, we all see these groups on Facebook, "I bet I can get a million of something that suddenly you should give a damn about" groups. And to be fair most are utterly pointless.

But I got asked to join the "I bet this sausage roll can get more fans than Cheryl Cole" group.It made me laugh so I thought why not... Then I realised something, this group of fun is a great experiment to use on people.

This post appeared the other day. Within 10 minutes of the post it had 249 likes and 237 comments. Purely about how you like your sausage roll.

This then grew to 760 likes and 670 comments by the next morning.

And as I write this post, it now has 1,150 likes and 977 comments.

I know this is just a bit of fun, but imagine Greggs using this group to it's advantage. It was founded on 30th January and by the 9th of February it has over 850,000 members willing to tell the world they love sausage rolls more than Cheryl Cole.

How can you exploit this? Is Facebook the fastest moving fad going, and do you think clients could tap into this market quick enough to exploit it, then reap the benefits? I personally don't think many are. Ideas, build time and approval from the powers that be will always be run ragged by a fast moving person.

Everyone on Facebook wants their five minutes of internet history, RATM for xmas number one got a Christmas number 1 out of the social media craze. This group even wants to piggy back on the success of the sausage roll group!

As the Facebook machine goes on, I wonder whether digital companies, creatives and clients have the ability to implement things faster. After all, this is the digital age we live in.