As marketers, how much psychology do we need to understand to make sense of what our customers are doing socially?

Are they trying to tell us what they want or need by engaging? Or, is it simply that they are utilizing social networking to become influential among their peers?

What happens when a customer becomes popular within his or her chosen social network? What are the chances that a brand can piggyback on this newfound influence (i.e. brand evangelism or word of mouth)? On the other hand, could popularity and potential narcissism cause a customer to leap to a more desirable brand that is as equally popular as them?

We know that people join social networks because they want to be part of a group. Should marketers be required to have a deep understanding of group dynamics in order to analyze group interactions and how they may or may not impact business efforts?

Will the more socially advanced organizations expect that their marketers will understand how social networks and psychology affect market dynamics in order to project future revenues?

Psychology Today: The Psychology of Social Networking

“One intuitive hypothesis is that “popular” people (those with vast, far-reaching, and significant networks or contacts) will have connections both in the real as well as in the virtual world; thus the number of people one deals with in the real or physical world should be positively correlated with the number of virtual or electronic contacts one has.”

Alexandra Samuel: Group identity and the psychology of social media

“One of the primary themes of my dissertation was the power of group identity as a motivation for participation. Reading the social psychological literature on group identity, it became clear that people join groups that reinforce positive ascriptive identity — those identities that are positively valued in our society. The practical implication is that you need to organize your community’s membership around identities people feel good about: I’m far more likely to identify myself as a member of ‘parents of gifted children’ than I am to join up with ‘compulsive nail-biters’.”

The Layman’s Guide to Psychology: The Psychology of Twitter, Facebook, and Other Social Networking Devices

“Narcissism is generally not a celebrated trait. Why then is social networking so widely accepted if it is so related to narcissistic tendencies? Is it possible that the internet merely allows an all-to-easy outlet for these tendencies to surface from people who may otherwise not possess them? According to one study, this seems to be the case.

Some people are far more shy than others but to a certain extent we all possess a little of this–even the “kings of narcissism”. Being shy is a defensive measure that allows an individual to protect themselves from ridicule, or worse. The internet has allowed individuals an uncanny intimacy while maintaining a near-infinite level of physical separation.”

CompuKol Connection: The Psychology Behind Social Media

“If you approach your social media marketing campaign from a psychological angle, you will see that people respond to your business offerings and to you as an individual. You will see that they will gladly spread the word about your products and services as well as your expertise in your niche. People will be speaking about you and on your behalf before you know it and that, of course, brings you another step closer to great success.”

MIT Press Journals: Simulating Market Dynamics: Interactions between Consumer Psychology and Social Networks

“Watts and Strogatz ^[18] proposed a model for social networks that describes the small-world and clustering characteristics in networks. This model includes empirically found characteristics of social networks, namely the small-world effect ^[11] and the clustering effect ^[12]. The small-world effect refers to the experience that despite the large population, the map of who knows whom is such that we are all very closely connected to one another. The clustering characteristic refers to the existence of clusters in social networks. People’s circles of acquaintance tend to overlap to a great extent. Your friend’s friends are likely also to be your friends.

Amaral et al. ^[1] showed that the scale-free network hypothesis is more complex. They analyzed different types of networks and found also networks that followed the power law up to a sharp cutoff. For example, a highly connected node may refuse to accept new connections because of capacity and cost constraints, or a well-connected node may die. Amaral et al. ^[1] proposed an adjustment of the Barabasi-Albert model by including the option that a node in the network becomes inactive with a certain probability. Since new nodes can only connect with active nodes, they are able to reproduce different classes of observed networks. This approach may be more correct in modeling consumer networks, as consumers functioning as a hub in a network will be limited in the number of contacts they have.

The results presented in this article indicate that besides psychological needs and decision processes, also the size and shape of the network involved in consumer decision making have an important influence on how the market organizes itself. Especially when the satisfaction per unit of consumption is high, as is often the case with products that satisfy lower needs, the results suggest that the shape of the network has serious consequences for the number of products that dominate the market. The results show that a scale-free network yields a market dominated by far fewer products than in the small-world network with a limited number of random links. Even for low visibility products the hubs have a strong influence on which products other agents consume.”

Happy reading!

[Image Source: thisismarilyn.com]

Even More Goodness! Related Posts:

• The Social Media Unpanel
• Who owns your Twitter or Facebook Connections?
• The Four Faces of Social Media
• Social Media is like Recess

6 Responses to “Saturday Morning Reads: Do Marketers Need to Become Social Psychologists?”