Social Media is just a channel
But what about the saying, "the medium is the message"?
How much value should we place in social media? I guess I would say it depends on what are you looking for.
An interesting point was made today about how social media is a channel for people to express themselves and communicate. That is the WHAT, and that is where social listening tools come in and culls out all the conversations.
But from there, the next step would be to use your own analysis to deduce WHY do people say what they say. The WHY question exists across all channels - be it online or offline - and it is simply a question of basic human behavior. And the value about discovering why would then help us discover real human insights behind things, perceptions, events and brands.
That is not to say that there are no real human insights 'in real life'. In fact, observing how people act instead of what they say is probably even stronger. But limitations in transport, time and effort means that we cannot always be there to survey what people are doing.
That is where social media can come in to at least inform you that this is what they are saying, and if we understand why they say what they say it then helps us understand how to appeal to their 'profile' or needs.
Motivations for participating in social media could be theoretically classified according to the Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.
According to this article on how to motivate your consumers to participate in social media, the key lies in understanding what drives them in the first place.
After understanding the needs, as a brand or product it should then fulfill either of the 2 types of motives to provide value - utilitarian and/or hedonistic. I feel that most brands will start with utilitarian since it is more basic, but will progress to hedonistic.
[Sidetrack: HBR has an article about how digital provides value on 3 fronts; time (flexible and instant), space (virtual shops) and matter (digital content)]
The challenge would lie in identifying motivations online and marrying them with real world behaviors/motivations. Will they match? I suspect there will be limitations to this 'social media' motivations yet at the same time something theoretical.
On the grand scheme of things, there are also 2 opposing views for brands marketing themselves - in a recent talk I attended, a speaker proposed that brands should just be cool and do cool stuff, ideally provide consumers with ways to viralize it, and people will automatically engage and spread it for you VS. you need to understand and latch on a relevant human insight for them to care about you.
So which is more important? Being who you are, or understanding your consumer?
Referenced links:
http://socialmediatoday.com/index.php?q=SMC/17260
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosocial_behavior
http://consumerbehaviour4vtu.blogspot.sg/2009/03/motivation.html
How much value should we place in social media? I guess I would say it depends on what are you looking for.
An interesting point was made today about how social media is a channel for people to express themselves and communicate. That is the WHAT, and that is where social listening tools come in and culls out all the conversations.
But from there, the next step would be to use your own analysis to deduce WHY do people say what they say. The WHY question exists across all channels - be it online or offline - and it is simply a question of basic human behavior. And the value about discovering why would then help us discover real human insights behind things, perceptions, events and brands.
That is not to say that there are no real human insights 'in real life'. In fact, observing how people act instead of what they say is probably even stronger. But limitations in transport, time and effort means that we cannot always be there to survey what people are doing.That is where social media can come in to at least inform you that this is what they are saying, and if we understand why they say what they say it then helps us understand how to appeal to their 'profile' or needs.
Motivations for participating in social media could be theoretically classified according to the Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.
According to this article on how to motivate your consumers to participate in social media, the key lies in understanding what drives them in the first place.
After understanding the needs, as a brand or product it should then fulfill either of the 2 types of motives to provide value - utilitarian and/or hedonistic. I feel that most brands will start with utilitarian since it is more basic, but will progress to hedonistic.
[Sidetrack: HBR has an article about how digital provides value on 3 fronts; time (flexible and instant), space (virtual shops) and matter (digital content)]
The challenge would lie in identifying motivations online and marrying them with real world behaviors/motivations. Will they match? I suspect there will be limitations to this 'social media' motivations yet at the same time something theoretical.
On the grand scheme of things, there are also 2 opposing views for brands marketing themselves - in a recent talk I attended, a speaker proposed that brands should just be cool and do cool stuff, ideally provide consumers with ways to viralize it, and people will automatically engage and spread it for you VS. you need to understand and latch on a relevant human insight for them to care about you.
So which is more important? Being who you are, or understanding your consumer?
Referenced links:
http://socialmediatoday.com/index.php?q=SMC/17260
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosocial_behavior
http://consumerbehaviour4vtu.blogspot.sg/2009/03/motivation.html
Comments
Post a Comment