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]

Yesterday I had the pleasure of moderating the first Unpanel in social media along with its founders Jason Breed of Neighborhood America and Marc Meyer of the Digital Response Marketing Group. I really like the style of UnConferences, so the concept of an Unpanel was intriguing to me. The Unpanel reminded me of the Plurkshops* from long ago (*Plurkshops were an hour long topical conversations on Plurk that anyone could join). The cool thing about these Unpanels is that no “echo chamber” talk is allowed…only forward thinking is permitted.

The concept of giving a lot of people a platform and opportunity to share their thoughts around the topic of social media has always been important and the way Jason and Marc (and the rest of the team!) integrated the conversation into one location is pretty cool.

There will be an Unpanel every Tuesday, Noon-1pm EST. Each Unpanel will feature a different topic and moderator. I know I am looking forward to more…so I hope to see you at the next Unpanel!

And finally, I asked Marc Meyer to share his thoughts here on THoM…so without further ado, here’s Marc’s post about the first Unpanel:

Lo and behold though something occurred on Tuesday that was somewhat memorable and very worthy to write about. Tuesday was the first official Unpanel event on Twitter. A one hour, once a week, no holds barred, fast paced moderated twitchat. Or, to quote Jason Breed, one of the founders, “an Unpanel is a purposeful interaction with individuals around their industry or business on Twitter….”

So this Unpanel was significant on a few levels and I want to highlight them for you so that you make a point of blocking off the time each week to participate in a truly engaging and elevated conversation about social media.

#1 We had a moderator that absolutely drew out of the 100, yes that’s right, 100 participants, more than just the cursory “social media is all about transparency” comments. Did I mention that Beth Harte was the moderator? We could not have had a better “first” moderator/host. [Note from Beth: Marc is being entirely too kind!]

#2 Pre-set questions; but not your normal “what is social media” questions. Below are those questions:

• Q1:  Where are the deficiencies in business around People, Interactions & Technology? In other words, where does social media make sense in a business setting when addressing those deficiencies?
• Q2:  Play the “What if” game.  Addressing the above deficiencies, remove all barriers and let the imagination roll.  (For example, what if CRM systems were filled up by buyers not salespeople) Use the “In a perfect world” scenario when plugging in a social media solution. What does that world look like?
• Q3:  Combine the identified needs in business with the “imagine if” comments and let’s create a high-level road map

#3 Incredible discussion. Powerful give and take. Amazing connection with people on social media issues that we can all relate to that get beyond the echo.

#4 A discussion on Twitter with actionable takeaways.

#5 Value. I harp all the time on the value of a tweet or the value of a persons tweets, and in the span of one hour, there was more value in what was being said than what might be gleaned from a week of following a so called social media expert..

#6 The website Hashtagsocialmedia, provided a forum to follow the tweets right on the site. It also provided Beth’s tweets on the side panel so that we could see Beth’s insights and followup questions. Key and critical to pushing the discussion to a higher level. [Note from Beth: be sure to check out all the conversation there.]

#7 People worth following AFTER you’ve had conversations with them, Not before and not based on who they are following, I cannot tell you how many times I said during the Unpanel, “Wow what a great point”…

#8 As awesome as Beth was, the Unpanel will have a different moderator/host with a different perspective every week and thats an important aspect. They don’t have to be rock stars to bring value to the discussion.

#9 A compilation in one place, of potentially the best minds in social media, that SOME people might not know. And we’re able to talk with them. Only through the power social media is this possible. How cool is that?

#10 It’s going to get better.

As you know, I’ve been reviewing and questioning personal branding lately and I have one final question (or in this case, lots of questions) for you all. Quite simply, from a “You 2.0″ perspective, if you work for a company and you build up your Twitter Followers or Facebook friends from the hours of 8am-5pm (or whatever your daily work hours are)…who owns those connections made during those hours? And as you know, you don’t need to use the company network to Twitter or Facebook, so then what?

You might not like what I am about to say here, but I believe that if a company is paying you to connect with people online on their behalf…they own those connections. Even if the accounts are under your name. I mean, they paid you, right? Or is that wrong? Or is it both? What are the ethics?

Role-based Pre-Existing Accounts

Take my Twitter/Facebook accounts, I am Beth Harte on both. If I were to join a company in marketing capacity and continue to increase my connections while they are paying me, I believe those connections are the property of my employer. Or are they?

How do we address this potential issue? Here’s one thought…

Prior to accepting a job, negotiate that all followers/friends (existing or new) will remain your property and that the company has the right to “borrow” your accounts and connections for the period of your employment.

Does that work? Would employers buy into that? Would we need to prove the value of our accounts before they would accept those negotiating terms?

Non-role-based Pre-Existing Accounts

Let’s face it, lots of people have Twitter accounts that may not have to do with their daily jobs and yet they still are on Twitter and Facebook during the day. What happens if your company finds out or if you get a new job where they don’t see any value in your Twitter/Facebook accounts? Do you only participate after working hours as to not potentially violate company guidelines?

What’s the most ethical way to handle this situation? Or is it not an ethical situation, but a basic “follow the employee rules/guidelines” situation.

New Accounts (Role-based or not)

What if you start your Twitter/Facebook accounts under your name while working for your employer without their knowing, building up your followers/friends on the company’s dime? Or, on the flip side what if you start an account for your employer, but under your name (and not something like “Susan_XYZ Company”).

How can you handle these situations? If you’ve done it, how? And has it worked?

Where is it all heading?

Will we get to the point where everyone will have their own accounts and companies will have to negotiate for access to them? Will it take time for companies to accept these types of “personal brands” and in the meantime you’ll have to put yours on hold? Is it just a matter of employers having smart guidelines in place?

Lots of questions here and perhaps ethical situations. What do you think? Are there any other account ownership situations we should be discussing?

[Image: Telegraph]

I have been thinking about this for a while because I keep bumping into the same situations (well, people) over and over… This won’t be a lengthy post because I am more interested in seeing if you are having the same experiences as me. If so, I am really interested in your thoughts.

What are the four faces of social media? Well, as I have encountered them…I have settled on:

The Social Media Purist: The person who truly embraces social media as the conversation that the tools allow people to engage in from day-to-day. The tools might change, but the ultimate goal is to listen, learn, share, and converse with customers and prospects. For the purists, it’s about the conversation and the strength of the relationships that lead to strong business relationships. And the relationships affect all departments within a company because everyone employee is responsible for a great interaction.

The Marketer/PR Professionals or Ad/PR/Interactive Agencies: For the most part, a lot of these folks (for now, I hope…fingers crossed) see social media tools as just that…tools. They are tools that are used to push one-way messaging. It’s not about the conversation, it’s about the medium and more places and people to share the message when traditional marketing like advertising, PR, direct mail, events, etc. aren’t working or delivering. It’s what most are comfortable with, and I get that. While this mindset might work in the short-term…it won’t work long-term.

The Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Gang: Social media is about the tools that help generate the links. It’s about getting clients on Digg or StumbleUpon. It’s about stuffing keywords into every nook and cranny. It’s rarely about the conversation. Because SEOs are typically paid on results, they aren’t paid for helping clients engage in conversation. Or, it’s because they are making money for themselves by selling off highly ranked sites or by monetizing social sites…it’s purely business, not conversation. And yes, there are some SEO’s that get the mix of social media and SEO…I’m thinking about Lee Odden or Li Evans or Wil Reynolds.

The End User (that would be the customer): In the end, they are the people who are stuck combing through all the blog posts, tweets, and Internet links to find information that’s truly relevant to them and right at their fingertips when & where they need it. They want information or feedback that can help them to make a sound purchasing decision or the information that can help them do their job quicker, easier and better. They are the ones looking for conversation, but are the influencers that are most often forgotten by the marketing/PR/agency/SEO folks.

What’s going to happen here? And by here, I mean the world of marketing. I don’t know about you…but I don’t think social media isn’t going away any time soon. You all know me, I am obviously a purist. I enjoy conversation and I think it has many indirect and direct benefits to business and revenue.

So, should we find a way to get everyone to work together? Or will the social media purists eventually be pushed out by the marketers who continue to try to control the market and the SEO folks who are just looking to fill Google full of irrelevant links? Or, does it not even matter? What do you think?

[Image: iStock]

Something new here at The Harte of Marketing…a guest post from Steve Cunningham! Don’t know Steve? Well, you can get to know Steve on Twitter just like I did. In a nutshell, Steve is a CEO of digital marketing agency, Polar Unlimited, in Ontario, Canada, a songwriter, an ex-lawyer (which apparently he’s happy about) and a lifelong entrepreneur. And for fun, Steve reads & reviews business books at: Read it for Me. This is Steve’s first guest post and I think he did a bang up job! Let us know what you think.

Social Media is like Recess

Yes, it’s an odd analogy…but bear with me here. I believe that (unless you were a grade school dropout) you already know all you need to know to be successful with social media. Why’s that? In a nutshell: times may have changed but people fundamentally haven’t. The structures and interactions of a grade school recess are astonishingly similar to those of most social media communities.

The same people that show up in your Twitter stream and your Facebook feed are the very same characters you caught eating glue in kindergarten. Here are only 3 of the ways I believe that social media is like recess:

#1: The big group is made up of lots of small groups. There is no single Twitter community: it’s a collection of tens of thousands of small networks of ‘followers’ that share some commonality. There is no single Facebook or LinkedIn community: just thousands of networks of friends and affinities hubbed around an individual. These networks (or circles of friends standing around on asphalt) are made and stay together by shared interests, where each member of the group has actively made a decision to participate. And this is the interesting part:.you can’t join a group by just standing on the sidelines. You have to get in the game.

Lesson: Find your place in a smaller group. Some people play football, some play with dolls. Recess is too short for both.

#2: Every group’s got a leader. Every teacher knows how to quickly identity the ‘troublemaker’ in every group. At recess, these troublemakers usually decided what sport they would play or who the topic of the latest gossip would be. When they grow up, these kids will be re-branded “passionate” and “motivated”, but until then, they’ll be visiting the principal’s office frequently. Similarly, most successful social media operations reflect the personality and interests of one individual: Chris Brogan, Gary Vaynerchuk, Leo LaPorte, Mike Arrington, Seth Godin, Robert Scoble, Jason Calacanis, etc. These e-celebs have fostered their networks (and generated gigabytes of monthly traffic) by identifying and holding true to the field in which they love. They also share one other trait: they aren’t afraid to stir the pot every once in a while.

Lesson: If you want to take a leadership position in that smaller group, you need to be willing to stir the pot every once in while, even if it lands you in the principal’s office.

#3: Your actions have consequences. Whether it’s on the playground or on Twitter, everyone loves to watch a good meltdown, right? There’s a not-so-secret thrill in seeing other people publicly self-destruct. (Evidence here). The difference is that online, those meltdowns stay in the public domain forever. Your friends might have forgotten that time you cried when your 6^th grade girlfriend dumped you for the older, more sophisticated 7^th grader, but the Internet never forgets. Worth remembering the next time you want to fire off a zinger reply to some snotty comment troll.

Lesson:  What happens at recess, does not stay at recess. Remember that.

My point? You’ve seen this all before: on the playground, in your home and at the office. Success in those arenas, as well as social media, comes down to how well you relate to people. You’d be much better off reading Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People” (written in 1937) than any of the “Secrets of Social Media Success” crap.

Man, I loved recess.

[Photo: iStock]