The Data Revolution #1: The Virtual Self

The Quantified Self, Self-tracking, and our "Data Mapped" Virtual Selves

Data. We produce it, share it, and rely on it every day. We use it to help track our activities, to improve our lives, to know ourselves better than we ever have before. We create virtual images and breadcrumbs of our daily lives, share them with our friends, and build and curate temples to ourselves. Then we use that massive pool, that cloud of contributions, to plan our trips, research our purchases, and make the world a better place. And yet we continually ask ourselves: when does the use of our data cross the line? Are we living for better, or for worse?

"The Data Revolution Series" delves into the issues and intricacies of our increasingly data-driven lives, from tracking our everyday behaviour to contributing data points for the social good. Based on insights and commentary from technology journalist Nora Young's (@nora3000) first book, "The Virtual Self: How our Digital Lives are Altering the World Around Us", we'll take a look at the pros and cons of the changing data landscape. This first post in the series introduces the concept of "The Virtual Self"...

 

"The pattern I see emerging is one where everyday information about where we are going, what we are doing, and how we are moving, and how we feel is brought together in the creation of a digital picture of ourselves." -Nora Young, "The Virtual Self"

The Quantified Self

"The Virtual Self", the title of Nora Young's latest book and the theme of her presentation at Toronto's Third Tuesday meetup on June 25, 2012, strikes a chord in many ways. Not only does it nail the current zeitgeist trend that is permeating and changing the way that we live our lives, but it makes us question whether these changes are good for us or bad, and if it's the latter, whether there's anything that we can do to take greater control of how it influences us. The story of "The Virtual Self", although big, begins with a simple analysis of a current trend in our culture: self-tracking.

As Young describes, "More and more of us are keeping track of the statistical minutiae of daily life, leading lives that are increasingly numerically documented." Every day, consumers are tracking their activities, behaviours, and physical and emotional changes. For example, we track our running with Nike+, our reading progress and habits with Kobo's Reading Life, our opinions of restaurants and venues with Yelp, and our comings and goings from the same with Foursquare. GetGlue helps us keep track of the movies we've seen and the TV shows we've watched, Path helps us document our lives, including when we sleep and when we wake, and Mint.com helps us track how we're spending our money.

The end result is what many call the "Quantified Self", a "self-understanding by numbers, facts, or objective updates, not the free-form self-scrutiny or reportage of the diarist or blogger."

The Emergence of Self-tracking

How did this kind of life, and the behaviour of self-tracking, come to be? Young cites three elements of digital culture and technology that have contributed to this change in how we live our lives. The first is the rise of social media. Web 2.0, Young argues, planted the seeds required to convince us that sharing data and information about ourselves was a good thing. "As websites designed to help us post information took off, they encouraged us to share more and more details about our lives," she writes, "and to consider it quite ordinary to do so."

The second factor is the emergence of smartphones, and specifically, the accompanying app ecosystem. Prior to this, self-tracking involved buying separate devices and software for each part of our lives that we wanted to track, from our sleeping habits to the number of steps we walked to the number of calories that we ate. "The ‘app revolution’," she notes, "has made it easy to document highly specific types of information without having to invest in a new device." Not only did smartphones and apps make it easier to live a Quantified Life, it made it fun: "What would have been an unwieldy and bizarre commitment to personal information-gathering is now a casual and painless process...what once might have been an intensive, or very odd, personal commitment, [is now] an easy, off-the-shelf hobby.”

The final cultural shift is the growing importance of numbers and quantifiable results. With an increasing amount of uncertainty—in everything from the economy to the environment—consumers are seeking tangible ways to keep track of how the world around them is doing (from Unemployment Rates to the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere). They’re applying the same accountability to their own lives. Anand Giridharadas has called ours the “Age of Metrics”, referring to our newfound love of statistics and data.

Welcome to your Digital Data Map

The result of all our self-tracking is the aforementioned Virtual Self, what Young calls our individual digital "Data Map", a "digital, statistical version of [our] real, physical life." This is, in her words, a "digital version of our earthly selves", the "sum of all those status updates about how you are feeling, what you did, how you moved, what you ate." In other words, our Data-mapped Virtual Self is one that is "documented, recorded, enumerated, and public."

In the future, Young postulates, the contribution of information to our digital Data Maps will be increasingly dynamic and automatic, it will share our data with the right people and parties and move that information into the right context, depending on our needs. It will become so automatic and natural to us, she argues, that we will no longer identify with the concept of "going online” and “going offline". Instead, we’ll always be connected and contributing to our Data Maps.

This is, ultimately, the result of our increasingly digital lives. The increase in the prevalence of technology itself is increasing the relevance and impact of self-tracking. Young writes: "Simply by virtue of using digital tools, we are invoking a technology of surveillance of the self. As we replace our analog tools with digital devices, we’ll start to see a startlingly full picture of our behaviours, preferences, activities, and so on. As we stop reading paper books ad start using e-books, keep electronic calendars instead of paper diaries, and have our location-aware cellphones with us at all times, we are passively generating data about our behaviour.”

The question we might now ask ourselves is: why? Why have consumers fallen in love with the idea of self-tracking—how does it benefit us, and how does it fit into our culture and our nature as human beings? Stay tuned for the next post in "The Data Revolution Series"!

Respect for Strategy Episode 4 - "What's Your Blogging Strategy?"

At the #Word11 blogging conference (on Aug. 27, 2011 at the #CSIAnnex), I talk to Mukul Verma of dailyDEALtips.com (an experienced blogger) and Neil Gasson (a blogger who's just starting out) about their blogging strategies.

Respect for Strategy Episode 1 - "To Tweet, or Not To Tweet?"

In the debut episode of Respect for Strategy, Paul and I shoot the breeze on the merits (and failings) of Twitter, the plight of the Luddites, and more...

The Science of Social Networks #3: Copycats

"To each his own." Everyone has their own unique preferences, right? We're in complete control of what we like and what we don't like, right? No one can tell us what to think or do except ourselves, right? Well... what if I told you that, in the context of our social networks, we are all actually "copycats" - imitating our friends, conforming to expectations, and pining for what other people desire?

The Science of Social Networks Series will cover some of the more interesting insights and findings from the Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler book "Connected" and discuss how they might apply to marketers attempting to build closer connections with their consumers. In the final post in this series, Part 3, "Copycats", we'll take a look at how the actions and expectations of our social network influences what we do.


People Imitate Each Other

"No man is an island." It's true, don't you think? We're never truly alone: our social networks surround us both online and off. One of the consequences of always being a small part within a larger group is that many of the decisions that we make - what to eat, where to go, what to buy - are influenced by those around us. We imitate each other. And guess what, we choose to imitate each other. As social critic Eric Hoffer puts it, "When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other." Iain Couzin of Princeton University looks at group dynamics from a different angle in his comments about shoals of fish from an article in The Economist, "If the models are anything to go by, the best outcome for the group—in this case, not being eaten—seems to depend on most members being blissfully unaware of the world outside the shoal and simply taking their cue from others."

Think back a few months, to the beginning of January. It's a time of New Years resolutions. One resolution that many people have is the desire to lose weight - by eating better, exercising more, and perhaps even going for a run (or aiming to go for a run) every day. You may have had one or more friends who made this proclamation and went about trying to lose weight. You yourself might have even been that friend. According to the authors of Connected, hearing that people are going for a run - just the thought of it - dramatically increases the odds that you or one of your friends will soon try running as well: "If you start a running program, then your friend might copy you and start-running; or you might invite your friend to go running with you."

"We are all capable of thinking with our heads, but our hearts keep in touch with the crowd."

Knowing this has a huge influence on how marketers might go about attempting to spread an idea, product, or behaviour. As the authors state, "Social networks generate behaviour that is not consistent with the simplified, idealized image of a rational buyer and seller picking a price to transact the sale of goods." But that, indeed, is how most marketers think of their consumers: as rationally-minded people plotting the pros and cons of their brand and its price while deciding whether to buy it or not. In fact, making activities, transactions, and "Likes" as visible as possible seems to be a more intuitive way of making a sale - of leading a sheep to the slaughter, to put it bluntly. Think about "Liking" brands and products via Facebook's ubiquitous "Like" button. It's not hard to fathom a future in which every single action or decision can result in a "Like" being broadcast to our network. Another way to allow people to publicize their behaviour is by allowing them to "Check-in" to places and retailers (ie. FourSquare), content like TV shows and books (ie. GetGlue) and even individual products (ie. ???). Making their actions public is key - because it increases the odds that their friends will copy them.


People Want to Conform to Expectations

Another somewhat surprising, somewhat not-so-surprising insight from Connected: people will genuinely prefer to do what is expected of them, or what has been set out as the social norm, even if that action conflicts with their own individual preferences and beliefs. The authors illustrate this phenomenon with the story of Stanley Milgram's social psychology experiments at Yale University in 1963. In the experiment, a subject was placed in the role of the "teacher", with the job of helping another, unseen subject (the "student") learn. The "teacher" was instructed by one of the experiment's "researchers" to give the "student" a powerful electric shock every time they answered a test question incorrectly.

The reality is that this entire set-up was a charade: the "researcher" and the "student" were actors meant to test the "teacher's" tendency to conform to expectations and authority. As the "student" continued to answer the "teacher's" questions incorrectly, the electric shocks seemed to get worse and worse (the "student's" screams were, in actuality, faked). Many of the subjects who played the role of the "teacher" began to become increasingly distressed as the experiment went on and the screams from the "student" got louder. The reason that most "teachers" continued to shock the "students" is simple: the "researcher" would continually tell them that they were expected to continue or that the experiment required them to continue. To read more about Milgram's experiments, click here.

"[People] have a tendency to relinquish their decision-making to a group and to its hierarchy, especially when they are under stress."

Does this mean that we, as marketers, should be telling people that they must buy our products? Of course not! :) But the lesson from Milgram's experiment is that when behavioural expectations are set by an expert or authority figure - there's an increased chance that people will follow, regardless of their own desires. One area where this insight may be particularly useful is social marketing - attempting to shift social behaviour, like preventing teens from doing drugs or convincing people to recognize mental health as an illness. By setting expectations and letting people know how they should be acting, they may just follow suit.


People Want What Other People Want

The final insight into how our social networks influence our behaviour: people tend to desire what other people desire. When an object or situation is coveted by a certain group of people, it inherently puts pressure on other groups of people to covet it as well. As the authors put it: "Our judgement about the value and desirability of goods is thus similar to our judgement about the value and desirability of sexual partners: it depends on how others perceive the object of affection in question. Social pressures can drive demand."

In the same respect, being able to see what others thought of something can be a guide to how desirable that something is - and may thus influence what the succeeding people think about it. According to the authors, scientists found that in an experiment that asked the subjects to rate a given song, the first person's rating tended to influence the whole trajectory of ratings for particular songs. If the first reviewer rated a song relatively highly (and so, desireable), those reviewing the song after were more likely to also rate it highly. "Because of our tendency to want what others want, and because of our inclination to see the choices of others as an efficient way to understand the world, our social networks can magnify what starts as essentially random variation."

"Groups of animals often make what look like wise decisions, even when most of the members of those groups are ignorant of what is going on." -The Economist, Feb. 24, 2011

The lesson in this case is clear: one way for marketers to make their brands and products desirable is to make it clear that many people desire them - to make this desirability public. This need not only apply to brands and products, but deals and offers, too. Take Groupon, for example. Not only does passing on a daily deal to one's friends show that an offer is good - it shows that it's desirable. That, in turn, makes you want to get it, too. Shweet is an up and coming build on the Groupon model that aims to spread contests rather than deals. In order to be entered into a marketer's specified contest, one must tweet or share it (called "shweeting" it) with one's friends and followers. When the set number of "shweets" is met, the contest is activated. A meter below each contest shows the relative number of "shweets" - representing a contest's relative desirability.


Still believe in "to each his own"? As we've seen, we may be giving people too much individual credit when it comes to choosing how to behave and what to like or do. People tend to imitate each other. They'll tend to conform to the expectations and norms that are set upon them. They'll also tend to want the things that others want. And so, by making actions, behaviours, and desires as public as possible, marketers can tap into the power of... copycats.

The Science of Social Networks #2: The Mating Game

"Your friends’ friends’ friends affect everything you feel, think, and do." That may be true when it comes to behaviour like eating habits and leisure activities - but what about the influence that our friends have over us in the realm of relationships? Do the same rules apply to the mating game, and if so, how can marketers tap into them in order to "meet" potential lovers?

The Science of Social Networks Series will cover some of the more interesting insights and findings from the Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler book "Connected" and discuss how they might apply to marketers attempting to build closer connections with their consumers. Part 2, "The Mating Game", will explore how our social networks can influence our relationships with both lovers and brands.


Birds of a Feather...

The first insight about what people are looking for in a potential mate has less to do with our friends and more to do with ourselves - how we view ourselves, to be more exact. How we view ourselves seems to have a direct influence on who we end up connecting with. In a nutshell: we look for those who are a lot like us. Christakis and Fowler call this "Homophily", the tendency of like to befriend like.

"People search for - or in any case, find - partners they resemble [in terms of their attributes] and partners who are of comparable 'quality'."

You might be thinking, "What about the saying, 'Opposites Attract'?" That saying may be true, but homophily seems to apply to a certain type of relationship - the long-term. "We expect more homophily in long-term relationships and less in short-term ones," say the authors. In fact, according to their research, 72% of marriages exhibit homophily - couples that are alike.

"The surprising power of social networks is that they bring likes together and serve up soul mates in the same room."

What can marketers take away from the idea of homophily? Before attempting to attract potential mates (ie. new users or "friends"), they must look inward, so to speak, and truly understand what kind of person - or personality - their brand has. What are its characteristics, values, and beliefs? How would the brand think, act, and behave if it were a real person? How would it talk? What would it say? For example, the Apple brand is about thinking differently, is focused on design and simplicity, and is always on the cutting edge, and it attracts users who are like that, too. Only after understanding and agreeing on the personality of their brand can marketers truly understand what type of mates would be suitable for long-term relationships.


"Arranged" Marriages

Now that you know who you are as a brand - how about an introduction? The funny thing is, most brands are going about fishing for potential mates in the wrong way - the "self-introduction". Any advertisement that you see on traditional media like TV and OOH and most new media like banner advertising and Google AdWords is a self-introduction from a brand to a potential mate. The environment may be a bit different - you're not in a bar, but on your couch, you're not on a dating site, but doing a Google search - but the behaviour is the same: "Hey, look at me. I'm interesting and might be good for you. Want to meet?"

In the real world, however, the real mating game, only one-third of people in a relationship met through self-introductions. One-third! Only one-third of relationships begin between complete strangers. How then, are people meeting each other? Easy: through their friends. According to the authors, over one-third of relationships begin with an introduction by a mutual friend. When moving beyond close friends, the percentage grows even higher: 68% of people met their spouses after being introduced to each other via someone they knew.

"The majority of people find spouses and partners by meeting friends of friends and other people to whom they are loosely connected."

The application to marketers, in this case, is clear. People are more likely to be introduced to a potential long-term mate through direct recommendations from their social network. How easy is it, right now, to directly recommend a brand or product to a friend? When it comes to close friends, it's not that difficult: we talk to them face to face and spread the word organically "I just started using this new product, and it's really great - you should try it." We might even send them a quick email with a link to the product's website. But this relies completely on the willingness of the consumer to do that, and only really impacts their close friends. In order to facilitate quicker, easier, more direct recommendations of products among one's greater social network, brands will have to do a better job of integrating "recommendation engines" into every interaction and touchpoint with their consumers.


She said what about him?

The final lesson from the mating game: reviews matter. This is especially true when it comes to marketing to women. As Christakis and Fowler put it, "Copying the preferences of other women may be an efficient strategy for deciding who is a desirable man when there is a cost (in terms of time or energy) in making this assessment or when it is otherwise hard to decide." So when it comes to choosing potential mates, women find it extremely helpful to hear what other women have to say about them. Funnily enough, reviews don't seem to have as much of an influence on men: "When selecting mates, males tend to be less choosy than females and so are less concerned with the opinions of anyone else to begin with."

Reviews are, however, especially impactful when they come from those who have previously been in a relationship with the mate in question, and would know the inside scoop on whether or not they were worth the time and effort. Psychologist Daniel Gilbert has shown that woman can do a better job of predicting how much she will enjoy a date with a man by asking the previous woman who dated him what he was like than by knowing all about the man. According to the authors:

"While a woman can, with a glass, assess for herself various attributes of a man that might be associated with his genetic fitness (his appearance, his height, his dancing ability), other traits related to his suitability as a reproductive partner (his parenting ability, his likelihood of being sweet to his kids) can require more time and effort to evaluate. In those cases, the assessment of another woman can be very helpful."

Marketers should be encouraged to facilitate the reviews of their brands and products by consumers as much as possible. This can mean following up with a consumer a few weeks after their purchase, asking them to share their thoughts, feelings, and experiences about a product with others - perhaps for a small incentive. It can also mean encouraging instant reviews at the point-of-purchase, using kiosks or tablets, capturing the excitement and adrenaline of a new purchase and siphoning that energy off to one's friends. Finally, it can mean asking consumers for a review at the point when the product or service has had the most impact on their lives. For example, imagine if an insurance company's customer was asked to write a review right after a major accident, when they were most likely to be grateful that they have the coverage and the help from the brand that they're with.


And so, we've learned that there is definitely a lesson or two (or three...) on how to start relationships with potential consumers that we can learn by observing the real-life mating game. There's only one more question to ask: do you know anyone who might be interested?

The Science of Social Networks #1: What's in a Friend?

"We are all connected."

We've heard this line many times before, in many different contexts. Call it "The Butterfly Effect" or "Six Degrees of Separation", read about it in "The Tipping Point", experience it when meeting someone for the first time and realizing that... hmmm, it's a "small world" after all.

The fact is, our social networks - the bonds that hold us all together - permeate and influence every part of our lives. With social media, these networks have been pushed to the forefront of society - bonds that were once invisible are now omnipresent, ties that were once intimate are now available for all to see.

But is there a science behind these networks, a science that can help explain both the influence that they have over us and the power that they can provide?

Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler both attempt to answer this question in their book "Connected" - a riveting exploration of the "exciting new science of social networks". Their thesis is, in a nutshell, that "Your friends’ friends’ friends affect everything you feel, think, and do."

The Science of Social Networks Series will cover some of the more interesting insights and findings from "Connected" and discuss how they might apply to marketers attempting to build closer connections with their consumers. Part 1, "What's in a Friend?" will explore the meaning and the various degrees of friendship.

It's the ultimate prize that every marketer, every brand, strives for: becoming their consumer's "friend". The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a friend as "a favoured companion", one that is "attached to another by affection or esteem", and "one that favours or promotes something". When a user "Likes" a brand on Facebook or "follows" one on Twitter, it is usually a cause for celebration. "We've got a new FRIEND!" the marketing team might cry as they give themselves high-fives. But there's one important detail that they forgot to consider: what type of "friend" are they?


Too Many Friends, Too Little Time

The first thing we need to be aware of will be painfully obvious to heavy users of social networking sites: we've got too many friends. Steven Levy sums up this sentiment in this hilarious article from WIRED Magazine titled "The Great Facebook Reset": "Our friend lists have become bloated and awkward. It’s time to start over. I propose that Facebook grant us a friend-list do-over. Like most people, I desperately need one: At this point, my collection resembles the contents of a house occupied by a hoarder.”

What Levy means is not necessarily that he's got too many friends, period. It's that he's got more friends than he's got time to keep track of and put energy into. To the authors of "Connected", that isn't surprising:

"While the human brain is designed to cope with large social networks, our capacity for friends is not, in fact, unlimited. [For example,] group size in modern armies hasn’t changed, even though modern telecommunications would seem to facilitate larger group coordination. This suggests that communication is not the crucial factor. More important is the human mind’s ability to track social relationships, to form mental rosters that identify who is connected to whom..."

The truth is, even with social media, our ability to maintain close friendships with large numbers of people is limited. As the authors put it, we only truly have a strong bond with a small number of close friends: "People have many interactions of varying intensities with all sorts of people. [But] while a person may know a few hundred people by sight and name, he will typically be truly close to only a few."


The Chosen Few

What makes this group of friends - this chosen few - so different than the rest? Social scientists identify who people deem close individuals by asking them questions like "Who do you discuss important matters with?" and "Who do you spend your free time with?" And so, a close friend is someone whom you enjoy spending time with, of your own free will, talking about matters that are important to you. They're people whom you can trust with important issues - those who you can pick up the phone and have a conversation with in a heartbeat. Sociologist Peter Marsden calls these people our "Core Discussion Network".

This core network is tiny compared to the network as a whole. According to the authors' study, the average American has just four close social contacts, with most having between two and six. In another study in which respondents were asked to name their "discussion partners", 70% reported fewer than five. This same pattern appeared to hold true whether or not one was online or off - we can only remain engaged with a very small number of people, which means we have to be selective when choosing who to "friend" and how much time to spend with each.

This finding is significant because it means that the pattern most likely holds true for brands as well - people can only truly be close to a few brands at a time. Think about it: how many brands do you really think of as your friend? How many brands would you say that you're engaged with, that you freely spend time with and enjoy their company? More likely than not, the number will range from 2 to 6: Apple, Second Cup, Google... maybe the SCENE card. Those are my friends. And so, marketers must ask themselves - do we want them to "Like" our brand, or do we want them to really like our brand?


You "Like" Me, You Really "Like" Me!

According to a recent 2011 study by Ad Age/Ipsos Observer, 75% of Facebook users have "Liked" at least one brand, while more than a third have "Liked" at least six or more. Don't celebrate just yet, though, the study also indicated that users were not "Liking" brands because they wanted to be their friends, they "Liked" them because they wanted something in return: nearly two-thirds of respondents said that in the online space, they wanted brands to offer them discounts, ahead of better customer service (42%), games/entertainment (28%), and company news (22%). In fact, the first reason for friending a brand was "I hoped to get discounts."

And who can blame them for thinking about brands in this way? Marketers have trained them to expect an online relationship that consists of discounts and deals. More often than not, it was a discount, deal, or coupon that was used to bribe a "Like" out of them in the first place. When the Kanye West/Jay-Z single H.A.M. debuted on Facebook, users were forced to "Like" the page before they were allowed to listen to the new track for free. Here's how Hannah Sung of The Globe and Mail felt about it, as quoted in her article "The Power of Facebook's 'Like' Button":

"After the last strains had faded away, I continued to think about that Like button. I had enjoyed the track, but I also felt manipulated, like a big bully had taken my hand, rendered weak by my overpowering curiosity, and forced it to click on Like."

Consumers shouldn't feel like they've been manipulated into allowing a brand into their social network, they should be encouraged to "Like" a brand - to become friends with them - because they really do think of it as a friend. For instance:

Kara Williams has been a loyal Cheerios eater as long as she's eaten solid foods - some 40 years or more. So when she saw the bright yellow logo float by on Facebook in a friend's news stream she was compelled to post on its wall. "Wow. Cheerios has a Facebook page. I eat them every day. Every. Day. Fave way to start the day!" - from Advertising Age (Feb. 28, 2011)

In order to be thought of as a true friend, to reach a new "social plane" of brand interaction, brands must move beyond what's expected of them - beyond just information, recommendations, deals, and discounts. They must move out of a friendship based on "utility" and into one based on a true "relationship" - a source of emotional bonding.

Not only will reaching this degree of friendship help brands build a strong level of engagement with their fans, it will prevent them from eventually getting the boot, too. According to a 2011 study by ExactTarget/CoTweet, 75% of consumers are being more selective about "Liking" a brand on Facebook compared to last year, while 40% don't believe that "Liking" a brand should automatically result in marketing communications from them. And when push comes to shove, they're not afraid to tell a friend to take a hike: 90% of consumers have "broken up" with at least one brand on Facebook, Twitter, or email because of irrelevant, too frequent, or boring marketing messages.

And as we all know, there is no worse feeling than losing a friend...

Social Media Week #3: Facebook - Friend or Foe?

Everywhere you go, everyone seems to be talking about it: social media. Marketers are suddenly falling over themselves in order to take advantage of an increasingly essential element of the marketing mix, while agencies are attempting to become experts in a still nascent discipline. That can only mean one thing: it's time for Social Media Week!!  


The Social Media Week Series will focus on insights gained from several sessions from Toronto's version of the Feb. 2011 conference. This post will focus on the current social media behemoth: Facebook.


Facebook - Friend or Foe? 

 From its humble beginnings in a Harvard dorm room to the multi-billion dollar behemoth that dominates the Internet, Facebook is the social network that has slowly become an integral, if not essential, part of our lives. It has not only transformed the way in which people consume information and interact with each other online, it has also opened up a new channel for marketers to reach and engage with their consumers. But does Facebook's ever-growing stranglehold on the Web result in barriers as well as opportunities? 

At "The People of the Web" session at the MaRS Centre for Innovation, presenter Steve Irvine of Facebook Canada took the audience through a few examples of ways in which the social network is changing both how people use the Web and how marketers do business.

In this post, I'll explore how Facebook has impacted (and will impact) both consumers and marketers - for better and for worse.

The Age of Discovery

 According to Irvine, the Web of the 90s was oriented around the act of "browsing" - it was linked via a series of web pages and users had to follow hyperlinks to get around, often using portals like Yahoo and Excite as their home bases (see my previous post on this topic, which referenced Wired's article "The Web is Dead"). To get viewed, marketers had to ensure that their web pages had a prominent place within a portal's web directory.  

In the 00s, the Web was driven by search - people used search engines like Google as their primary means of accessing relevant information. As such, Google was, and still is, the home page for many people. Its functionality has even been built into most Web browsers. To get viewed, marketers had to optimize the key words and meta tags within their web pages, as well as encourage other web pages to link to their own, in order to get optimal placement within a search engine's results.

In the next decade, Irvine posits, the Web will be oriented around people - users are increasingly looking to their friends, through social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Mashable, for relevant information and content. Irvine calls this "The Age of Discovery", one in which people no longer need to browse or search for information, but rather "discover" it on an ongoing basis, through their friends online. For many Internet users, Facebook has replaced Google as their homepage - with their newsfeed being their go-to source of information. To get viewed, marketers must plant links and content within these social networks and hope they get spread through friends of friends.

The People of the Web

Another element of the Web that social networks like Facebook have fundamentally changed is the way in which users identify themselves. Over the last decade and a half, users of the Web had been trained to never use personal or identifying information when interacting with others on the Internet. It was the first thing that your mother told you when you got your first Internet connection. Users had screen names, ICQ numbers, cartoonish avatars, and more - all in an attempt to mask their true identities.

Enter social networks like Friendster, MySpace, and Facebook. Unlike past social networking tools, these sites encouraged (and in the case of Facebook, practically mandated) the use of personal and identifying information. Out went crazy screen names and email addresses like "deathtrooper_501@yahoo.com" and in came real names - first and last. Out went avatars and in came real profile photos. New information - which were previously Web no-nos - was added as well: cell phone numbers, education and work history, even relationship statuses. Authenticity in how you represented yourself on the Web is now key, as social networks have worked to digitize your meaningful (and sometimes not so meaningful) relationships from the real world. All of a sudden, users were no longer strangers hiding behind aliases - they had become "The People of the Web".

With people now representing their own personas online and the Web now becoming oriented around the information and content that they shared, the opportunity for people to become influencers on others arrived. This, according to Irvine, has brought forth "The Democratization of Influence". Unlike the past, where people had to rely on a few major personas - like Oprah and Martha Stewart - for advice and recommendations, people are now turning to themselves. In a sense, with social media, we are all Oprah, and we all have the opportunity to influence others through the advice and content that we share.

A New Channel for Engagement

With over 16 million Canadians on Facebook, many of whom log in at least once every day, marketers now have a brand-spanking new channel with which to engage with their consumers, these "People of the Web". In the new marketing mix, owned media (a property or website owned by a brand) and paid media (advertising that a marketer pays for in order to appear in someone else's media property) have become less important. With more people spending their time on social networks and consuming information that is shared by their friends, earned media (formerly the domain of PR and word-of-mouth marketing) has taken center stage. Many marketers are now just looking to be talked about. Everyone wants to go viral.

Facebook allows them to attempt this in several ways. Originally, brands tried to build a following of "Fans" - a group of their core consumers who were proud to include their affinity for a brand as a means for helping to identify themselves. Being labeled as a "fan" may have proven too much for some people, however, and Facebook has since lowered the perceived commitment by using the word "Like" instead. Marketers now lose sleep over finding new ways to get more people to "Like" their brand on Facebook - not only does this broadcast that message to person's list of friends, it allows the brand to communicate with those who "Like" them in the future. And although the quality of a brand's fan base is important, quantity is, too. As Irvine puts it, "Fans are more valuable when they impact their friends."

"We think every industry is going to be rebuilt around social engagement. News, health, finance, shopping and commerce...all of these things will be rebuilt by companies that work with us to put social at the core." - Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg

Being active in the newsfeeds and pages of "The People of the Web" seems to have a major impact on ROI, as well. "Sponsored Stories," a relatively new feature on Facebook that re-purposes newsfeed stories as ads that appear to the friends in one's network, result in advertising that uses the names and profile photos of one's friends in order to engage. And according to Irvine, it works: when consumers see an ad with their friend's name in it, brand recall increases 1.6x, message recall increases 2x, and purchase intent increases 4x compared to an ad without that information. This type of personalized engagement, made relevant by including the influence of one's friends, represents a huge opportunity for marketers looking to "fish where the fish are".

Trapped in Paradise

There's a problem, however: Facebook is beginning to grow a bit too powerful. According to eMarketer, Facebook's share of online display advertising in the U.S. market has grown from 2.9% to 13.6% over the last two years. A recent article from the Wall Street Journal titled "Facebook's Web of Frenemies" touched upon the increasing fear among other firms that the social network's dominance might not be such a good thing. Why? The more dominant a channel is, the more control it has over how marketers can use it.
 

"Silicon Valley companies increasingly have to decide whether to treat Facebook like a friend whose reach and user data can help propel their own growth, or a foe that can become a destructive force." - The Wall Street Journal (Feb. 15, 2011)

In fact, Facebook's attempt to become an all-encompassing "Platform for the Internet" has transformed it into a giant walled-garden. Dan Rose, Facebook's VP of Partnerships and Platform Marketing, calls the partner-platform relationship an "equal value exchange". But is this truly the case? Facebook has total control of the means in which brands can interact with and engage with its users. Ad placements and units, though they exist in more than one variety, are tightly controlled and pre-defined. The network is also defined by a series of rules that are placed on both content and how that content is served up. Even the layouts of individual brand pages must follow the same, Facebook-mandated template. In the world of Facebook, the differentiation that brands work so hard to build with unique websites and online experiences is practically lost.

Another problem that may crop up as advertisers begin to jump on the Facebook bandwagon: clutter. Over the past year, the amount of space on one's homepage and friends' pages that is devoted to advertising has increased dramatically. And as brands become more active in engaging with their fans and encouraging them to share brand-related content and news with their friends, newsfeeds will begin to clog up with too much advertising. When that happens, Facebook will have to deal with the problem that traditional media companies have had to face over the last two decades: people will stop paying attention. They will ignore. They will tune brands out. And they will get sick of engaging with brands in this space. And just like media companies, Facebook will eventually have to loosen up and get creative in how it allows brands to use its platform. Brand integration, anyone?

The Portable Social Network

All is not lost, however. The growing popularity of the social network, and the ability for it to integrate itself with, impact, and influence one's choices beyond the Web, offers a realm of endless possibilities. Imagine if Facebook becomes the key identification system for users of the Web, with people using their Facebook account info to log into and facilitate registrations and transactions (this is already starting to happen). Imagine if Facebook could integrate itself with other increasingly-connected devices, like videogame consoles, television sets, fridges, and cars (again... this is already in the works!). People could turn to their social network for recommendations on game downloads, TV shows, what to have for dinner, or what route to take to the cottage. One only has to picture what can be possible when you have your social network with you...

"[Facebook is attempting to] build out what's known as a platform for the Internet, which other websites, cellphones and now even cars can use to build their own offerings to allow people to take their friends and preferences with them." - The Wall Street Journal (Feb. 15, 2011)

What do you think of Facebook - friend or foe? What opportunities are you most excited about? What barriers do you wish weren't there?

Social Media Week #2: Let's Get Political!

Everywhere you go, everyone seems to be talking about it: social media. Marketers are suddenly falling over themselves in order to take advantage of an increasingly essential element of the marketing mix, while agencies are attempting to become experts in a still nascent discipline. That can only mean one thing: it's time for Social Media Week!!  


The Social Media Week Series will focus on insights gained from several sessions from Toronto's version of the Feb. 2011 conference. This post will focus on social media and politics.


Let's Get Political!

In no sector is social media more important than politics. The time when our only true conduit to the people who governed us was a phone call to our local constituency is over. Now, more than ever before, people have the means and the passion to connect with their leaders and their parties on a one to one basis, and social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, and the Web allow them to do so.

But how much do politicians truly utilize social media channels in order to build relationships with people and engage with voters? How has social media been integrated with more traditional methods of politicking - from propaganda-like push advertising to face-to-face meet-and-greets? And finally, how effective is social media in bringing political parties and candidates a return on investment where it truly matters: votes?

These were but some of the questions that were debated and discussed at the "Social Media for Mayor" session at BNotions in Yorkville. The panel, which included representatives from both media companies like The Globe and Mail and PR agencies like Edelman, was moderated by Michael Nus and focused on how the candidates in the recent Toronto mayoral race used (or didn't use) social media in their political campaigns.

In this post, I'll touch upon several topics that were discussed on the use of social media in politics.

"As a marketing and networking tool, Twitter has become useful, perhaps even necessary, to the business of politics." -Maclean's (Feb. 21, 2011)

1) A Platform for the "Urban Elite"?

This question came up many times during the panel discussion: do the users of social media platforms (especially Twitter) still represent a niche group within society - the "Urban Elite," so to speak? As the panelists noted, although Rocco Rossi's "Goodfella" campaign had major success in the social media space while he was in the running, Rob Ford - who barely engaged with voters through social media - won voter interest far and away.

Rocco Rossi's "Goodfella" campaign was successful in terms of attention, but not votes (he eventually dropped out)

Could it be that social media platforms like Twitter (and to a much lesser extend, Facebook) are still platforms that are most heavily used by a small segment of the population (relative to the mainstream voting public)? Is the dialogue in this space just us - politicians, the media, and marketers - talking to ourselves? Take a look at the map below, which outlines the distribution of votes by location. Ford clearly won the suburbs, while Smitherman - whose campaign used social media much more than the latter - won amongst the highly-connected crop of urban voters. Did social media simply not have an impact on voters in the suburbs (by far the majority in terms of numbers)? And if that's true, why bother using it?

On the other hand, I'd like to add this question: does the size of the audience in the social media space really matter in the long run? Traditional media (newspapers, TV, radio) picked up the dialogue and news from the Twitterverse almost immediately and disseminated it to the mainstream voting public within hours. No matter where you lived, no matter how much time you spent using social media, you knew about what was being said in that space. Whether you heard it from a radio host on your way to work or read about it in the daily Twitter feeds featured in the newspapers, if you were paying attention at all, you knew. That begs the question, then: was Ford's runaway success not dependent on the medium, but rather the message?


2) A Simple Message Rules the Day

Perhaps, then, it was the simplicity and (as one panelist noted) "shallowness" of Rob Ford's campaign message, repeated consistently throughout the duration of the race, that persuaded voters that he was the right man to lead this city out of the recession. By the end of the campaign, every voter in Toronto knew his "Stop the gravy train" slogan and how it illustrated where he stood. It's ironic that in Toronto's first mayoral race to include social media as a key element, Ford's simple message seemed built from the ground up for traditional push media. And it worked.

3) "Old School" Social Media Still Works Wonders

It wasn't just Rob Ford's simple, catchy message that helped to endear him to Toronto's voters, his success was also due in part to his use of what could be termed "old school" social media to engage with the public. Ford held his own "town hall" meetings to take on live questions and communicate his campaign ideas, he utilized "robo-calling" to reach voters via telephone and solicit questions which he would address in the town hall sessions, and he spent much of his time talking to people - both on the phone and throughout the city.

4) No News Is Bad News

As the old saying goes, "No news is bad news," and this seemed especially true for Rob Ford during the mayoral race. Despite the social media activity from other candidates, much of which attempted to discredit his character, Ford seemed to be the candidate that everyone was talking about. Though he barely used social media, he led all candidates in YouTube video hits. In fact, Smitherman’s anti-Ford campaign, which even included a full-fledged website (FordOnFord.com), actually helped Ford’s cause! His opponent's efforts to cast him as a villain ended up portraying him as the ultimate form of political candidate: the "frontrunner underdog". The only necessary ingredient for a successful social media campaign, as it turns out, is talk value.

The Smitherman-developed FordOnFord.com ended up increasing Ford's talk value

5) The Gen Y Conundrum

Here's a question that I'll raise: is it worth it for political candidates to spend time campaigning in the Twitterverse and attempting to use social media to engage and influence young voters in their own space when many of them don't end up visiting the polls? The current process of laying down a vote may continue to be a major factor in this. Offline voting is as cumbersome and inconvenient as ever. Imagine getting home from school, attempting to find out where the voting station in your neighbourhood is located, and then learning at the last minute that you're not even registered yet. Jeez. It only makes sense that the best way to "close the sale" with young voters is to give them the option of voting in a space that they're comfortable with: the Web. Imagine being able to cast your vote via Facebook?

6) The Future of Social Media and Politics

All this talk about social media and politics left both the panelists and audience members mulling over the ways in which social media might be used by politicians in the future. While these channels were primarily used in a similar way to traditional media - to push campaign messages to voters - perhaps future candidates will use the medium to engage with the voting public and have two-way conversations with them. While the mayoral candidates mostly kept their "campaign hats" on as they communicated through social media during the race, perhaps in the future they will strive to be more authentic - to talk about things other than politics and allow voters to get a sense of who they really are. Finally, perhaps the future will even involve political campaigns that aren't static or set in their mandate, but rather dynamic in response to the reactions and input from the public - or "crowd". This is a democracy after all, isn't it??

In the end, despite the heated discussions and debates, the panelists all agreed on one thing: the only way to truly measure the success of a politician's social media campaign is votes.

Social Media Week #1: A Social Media Strategy for Retail

Everywhere you go, everyone seems to be talking about it: social media. Marketers are suddenly falling over themselves in order to take advantage of an increasingly essential element of the marketing mix, while agencies are attempting to become experts in a still nascent discipline. That can only mean one thing: it's time for Social Media Week!!  


The Social Media Week Series will focus on insights gained from several sessions from Toronto's version of the Feb. 2011 conference. This post will focus on social media and retail.


A Social Media Strategy for Retail

Here are two words that are still rarely found in the same sentence: retail and social media. Retail is all about getting shoppers into brick-and-mortar stores, drawing them in with special sales and promotions, and filling their shopping bag with as much merchandise as possible, right? Social media is all about managing the conversations that are happening around a brand in the online space, right? What use can the former possibly have for the latter? A lot, it turns out...

At "The Evolving Role of Social Media in Retail" session at Ryerson University's Ted Rogers School of Management, presenters James Connell and Tanja Zelko of Roots Canada took the audience through several initiatives that their retailer has employed that utilize the social media space in order to grow the business. To view a video of the presentation, click here.

In this post, I'll group these initiatives within three strategic pillars - essentially, a social media strategy for retail:

1) Social CRM

2) Social Branding

3) Social Commerce

Let's take a look at each of these pillars in depth...

1) Social CRM: Soliciting Instant Consumer Feedback

Social CRM (Customer Relationship Management) involves using social media channels as a platform for soliciting shopper feedback on an ongoing basis. Remember the ol' suggestion box that some retailers used to employ in order to give their shoppers a forum for suggestions and complaints? Shoppers would have to spend the time filling out a form on paper, slipping it into a mysterious box, and walk away not knowing who would read their comment or what would become of it. Perhaps the store manager would one day read the contents of the mystery box, address one suggestion for improvement, and post a positive comment on the employee bulletin board. This form of feedback is now dead; social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, and the retailer's website have changed the feedback cycle forever.

Feedback is now instantaneous. Shoppers no longer have to wait while their comment collects dust in a box somewhere - they can now post their point-of-view on a retailer's product or an experience that they had at any time. This is not necessarily a bad thing for the retailer, however, as it works both ways. Retailers now have the ability to react to and address their shoppers' comments and concerns as they happen. Not only that, but retailers can even be proactive in seeking instant feedback from their shoppers: Roots often utilizes Facebook Polls to gauge their shoppers' reaction to issues such as T-shirt sizes and product distribution.

Feedback is now public. Unlike the mysterious suggestion box, where comments are sent into the abyss and are read and curated by few, feedback in the social media space is entirely public. But again, this can work in a retailer's favour - comments can be addressed in the public eye, not only offering an answer to others who may have had similar suggestions or concerns, but showing that the retailer is responsive to its shoppers' comments. In fact, Roots often encourages its employees to respond to shopper feedback using their own personas (including their photo and their initials) rather than under a corporate avatar, helping them to essentially become the face of the brand.

Feedback is now actionable. Not that it wasn't before, but when feedback is received instantaneously and is viewable by the internal and external public, there is a greater opportunity and incentive for someone within the organization to take action on it. Roots employees work to aggressively protect the brand and its values by reacting to and taking action on complaints. In one case, when shoppers complained about the size of a purse strap, that feedback was relayed to the designers and the factory where the purse was made, resulting in a new strap being shipped to stores. Now that's CRM!

2) Social Branding: Bringing the Brand to the People

  

Social Branding involves using social media channels as a platform for building the retail brand's image and associations amongst its users. In the past, retailers primarily did this using traditional forms of media, like TV and out-of-home. But this was strictly a one-way affair: media pushed the brand's message to its shoppers, helping to build the retailer's image in their minds. Push media is still important, of course, but so is "fishing where the fish are," so to speak. Social media has changed the rules for how a retail brand can build its image and associations in the minds of its shoppers.

It brings the brand to the people. As shoppers spend more and more of their time on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, it only makes sense for retailers to find new ways of bringing their brand to life in this space. Utilizing the different angles of each of these channels - socializing, spreading information, and video consumption - brands like Roots have found unique ways of building their image online.

It allows for long-form, customizable content. Being a slave to a :30 advertising spot is no longer necessary in the social media space - brands can use channels like YouTube to post extended forms of content that can help build the brand. Building Roots' association with Canadian culture, the brand created a series of videos featuring Canadian Olympic gold medalists Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir. In support of Canadian writer/designer Douglas Coupland's new line of Roots merchandise, the brand even created a music video.

It lets shoppers help to shape the brand's image themselves. Retailers can use social media as a platform for crowdsourcing brand ideas and imagery from their shoppers. During Canada Day festivities, Roots intercepted passionate Canadians with a Flip video camera and asked them what they thought makes Canada priceless. They then created a video montage of the consumer-generated footage and shared what Canadians thought through social media.

3) Social Commerce: Tying Social Media to Sales

Social Commerce involves using social media channels as a platform for sales - both in-store and online. In the past, retailers could only rely on traditional media such as radio and flyers/circulars to create excitement about a new line of products or about a special promotion and drive traffic to their stores. Now, however, social media can be used in combination with traditional tactics in order to drive shopping behaviour - like browsing, window shopping, and deal-hunting - that has a stronger tie to sales.

 

It can create the experience of being in a store. Social media elements like product reviews and group-based deals help to create the illusion that shoppers who are interacting with a retail brand online aren't alone - they're part of a shopping crowd, just like they would be in a store. Not only does Roots encourage reviews and comments on its products and in its e-commerce store, it will even update commenters on the status of reviews they've published, making them feel more invested in their contributions. The feeling of shopping together seems to benefit the bottom-line, too: Roots shoppers that interact with a product review are 150% more likely to purchase something, spend more time shopping on the site, and spend more money in total. 

It can create a sense of excitement and anticipation. Just like circulars and mini-magazines that retailers distribute using direct mail and print, social media can be used as a channel to build excitement about a new line or sale. Roots offered up special, exclusive previews of upcoming products on its Facebook page, and created a unique, interactive Facebook Gift Guide app for the holiday season - effectively turning Facebook into a dynamic, richly interactive circular. 

It can create a new channel for sales. Social commerce can also play a role in driving new business opportunities for a retailer by facilitating and driving sales in a brand new channel. It goes beyond your traditional e-commerce, with platforms like Facebook Pages and Apps allowing retailers to get creative in how they sell their merchandise to their shoppers. Roots, for example, has experimented with a temporary Facebook "pop-up" store for their Spring 2011 collection, which included items sold exclusively at that store. To view Roots' Facebook pop-up store, click here (you must, of course, "Like" Roots first in order to gain access... ;)  )

 There you have it: Social CRM, Social Branding, and Social Commerce. Three strategic pillars that retailers can use to develop a social media strategy for their brand. From increased engagement and improved relationships with their shoppers, the ability to build a brand in creative ways with unique forms of content, and a new channel for driving traffic to stores and sales online, there's no doubt that retailers will be investing more time and money in the social media space for years to come...

What do you think of what Roots is doing in the social media space? What other social media strategies would you add to the three outlined here?