How Social Media is Driving Evolution in the Human Condition
On November 9, 1989 the people of West and East Berlin ushered in the end of an era of distrust, misinformation and control by tearing down the Berlin Wall and uniting the German people. It was a revolution not just of government and people, but of thought, commerce, society and the human condition.
I cannot help but marvel at the parallel between that monumental event in human history and how Social Media is destroying the impassable brand walls companies have maintained for decades. Now you have people, united through Social Media, driving massive change in the way we relate and communicate in business, society and government much the same way the people of Berlin did twenty-one years ago.
The real coffee-soaked revelation came when I realized this new era of consumer social dominance just may have been created by big business.
What happens when we replace human relationships with technology?
As human beings our strongest motivator in life is to build relationships that help us achieve our goals - personal, political and business included. No king ever gained power without the help of an army or political allies, no president ever took office without the help of millions of voters and no one ever married without first building a relationship with their betrothed. What I am really trying to say is that relationships are very, very important to us in every aspect of our lives.
But two points really hit me:
- This transcends our personal and business relationships to affect brands as well and the people that represent those brands.
- Communication is the most important ingredient in every relationship - it is the enabler and without it relationships wither and die on the vine.
Sacrifice communication in the interest of efficiency and profit
Here is where I start to see some problems... In the mid to late 90s companies started changing the way they communicated with their customers. Companies began to think about how to improve efficiency (read: cut costs/head count) of communication between them and their customers introducing some wonderful web technology (such as e-commerce, online accounts, etc) and complex phone systems able to handle almost any customer issue. These system improvements had some wonderful upside to help manage customers but what was the human cost?
I am a firm believer in balance and that in this case the negatives of efficiency improvements were gradual, unseen and with severe impact on customer relationships and brand loyalty.
Is Social Media to the Relationship (r)Evolution what a Cough is to a Cold?
My greatest fear for my clients is that the intense focus on Social Media is missing the big picture. It's the proverbial cough of a long, miserable cold for every large enterprise out there.
Consider this...
- When we eliminated human-to-human connections in business or at the very least made them difficult, we forced customers to evolve how they developed relationships with our brands - this was possibly the catalyst for great change.
- They had a powerful new medium, the internet, at their disposal; a medium that enabled them to connect with thousands of others who shared their point of view.
- The need for relationships spawned social media, but as technology advances and people adapt, so too will the vehicle they use to build relationships.
Being social is a human need. So doesn't every medium that meets the criteria for human relationships become a social medium? As marketers we so easily get stuck on "the big thing" and right now that's Facebook and their ilk. But we missed it I think. What if social media is just an early stage symptom of the relationship revolution?
We now, more than ever, need to look past the obvious and begin asking new questions.
- Why, how, when and where do my customers want to build relationships with me?
- How is their life changing and how can I make building a long term relationships easier, more relevant and more valuable to them?
Has social media changed human behavior?
What might really help is understanding how relationships and communication have undergone fundamental change over the past decade.
The 3A's of online human behavior
The 3 A's represent 3 key ways the internet has changed human behavior.
- Access: The internet has given everyone access to more information, good, bad and everything in between, than human society has ever had before; and it keeps growing rapidly each year.
- Acceptance: Whoever you are and whatever you do there are more people out there that share that with you. This has given rise to one of the key benefits of social media, acceptance by others. It is a powerful ingredient in human relationships.
- Anonymity: Probably the most potent and empowering characteristic available to people is the ability to be anonymous. This empowers and changes the way we behave online because it frees us of an important restraint - Accountability. And when we are free of accountability human beings are capable of many wonderful and horrible things.
Paying it forward works
I am not the first one to say this and certainly won't be the last. The web is full of conventional wisdom on how to approach people, so maybe I can offer a different perspective to help advance the understanding of online human behavior in juxtaposition to Social Media and online relationships in general.
First, paying it forward is a simple, but powerful concept for a selfless act to benefit another human being or group of human beings. The belief is that paying forward will eventually reach back to us in some positive form. The key to paying it forward is to be selfless; in other words sincerely not expect anything back. A tough call for any business to make, let alone a single person...
Second, what does "Paying it forward" do?
- It creates a good feeling in the recipient and if you believe like i do that emotions are contagious, this is a good thing. (I point back to Connected by Nicholas Christakis for an even more defensible argument on emotional contagion). A single person can help dozens of people feel good, but a company can help thousands.
- It builds a subtle kind of obligation. Obligation, even subtle obligation, is a powerful emotion; its the glue that binds a marriage together through all adversity. When you do something nice for someone, there is a natural tendency or feeling in the recipient to return that favor. Now, this doesn't apply to everyone because a lot of people will just keep taking without giving, but it is worth it.
- It creates a positive, memorable experience. Try it our for yourself - Remember back to some interactions with others that were truly memorable - you will find some incredible acts of selfless service behind those memories.
- It can potentially create brand evangelists. Brand champions or evangelists spread the word for us. This is the ultimate payback of paying it forward. Does it happen every time? No. But, the more powerful the act you pay forward, the greater the chance you will create evangelists.
The rise of marketing immunity
One undeniable thing that the internet and most recently social media has delivered is easy access to the knowledge of many. Think of the knowledge of many as a loosely organized library of knowledge on your brand with thousands of people contributing randomly to it on an hourly basis. This knowledge is out there for everyone to access in dozens of different social media groups, blogs community forums, and websites anytime time they want.
So has this given rise to marketing immunity? Well, think of this as the sledge hammer beating away at your brand wall to discover the truth past all your carefully planned marketing. It has two distinct characteristics:
- Customer enablement: Knowledge is enabling them to see past the brand wall and take action on their own or with others
- Bull shit radar: Being exposed to the experience of others is arming customers with enhanced BS radar - trust is no longer given the way it was, now the customer has the power to dig for truth in everything you claim.
The result - A savvy, knowledgeable customer that is immune to most, if not all, of your marketing hype - a customer no longer afraid to say "I don't believe you"..
If you can't beat em, join em
When you look at your customers, united in one voice, tearing down the walls of your brand - don't fight them, join them. Join them in tearing down old barriers to your brand and customer relationships. Enable them to build new ways to reach your brand and harness the power they are giving you to drive your brand to social dominance.
While this is a scary and risky proposition, imagine the opposite. Can any company survive in the long term by resisting this evolution? Does fighting it risk turning evolution into revolution?
I don't have the answers to this, but what I do know is that as businesses we need to begin looking at how we build relationships with our customers from a whole new perspective.
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Love this article or hate it, I want to know. Always appreciate good discussion, comments and feedback to continue to try and answer these questions.