Posts tagged ‘social media marketing’

There are many clear links between word-of-mouth marketing and psychology. Even if modern word-of-mouth marketing seems to be looked upon as equivalent to social media marketing in the minds of many marketers today, it is of utter importance not to forget that there are human beings at the heart of today’s socially connected digital world. Thus, understanding the psychology of human relationships is crucial if you want your brand to succeed on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and in other social media channels.

For most word-of-mouth marketers, it should be fairly clear that the most influential word-of-mouth effects arise when people tied together by strong emotional bonds share and spread a message. You will naturally listen more to recommendations and opinions from your family and close friends than from people you do not know. This insight was strengthened by a Harvard Business Review study showing that out of the famous “Six degrees of separation”, only the first three degrees of social connectedness actually have impact on people’s behaviour and opinions:

“… a person’s influence progressively diminishes as the degrees of separation increase. For example, the risk for smoking in a person connected to a smoker (that is, at one degree of separation) is 61% higher, on average, than would be expected as a result of chance. It is 29% higher if the friends of that person’s friends smoke, and 11% higher if the friends of the person’s friends’ friends smoke. By the fourth degree of separation there is no longer an increase in risk.”

So, this shows that the closer a person are to you, the stronger influence that person has on you. However, what’s really interesting is that beyond that point of truly close relationships, there seems to be a gap or a grey area where there is less influence – followed by increased influence again on “the other side” of that grey area. The grey area I am referring to holds the people you know well but don’t have truly close emotional ties with. That guy you went to school with and you now meet from time to time through common friends but that you never really hang out with, would qualify as such a “grey area connection”. Beyond the grey area, you have people you do not know as well, and they may actually be more influential than your grey area connections. I recently found a post over at PsyBlog that made me think that this may be the case. PsyBlog lists a number of studies showing that the better you get to know people, the less you seem to like them.

“…As this study shows, on the vast majority of occasions the less we know about someone the more we are inclined to like them. It’s like the fake student in Moreland and Beach’s study, ambiguity allows us to imagine that other people share our world-view, our personality traits or our sense of humour. Unfortunately as soon as we start to find out more about them, we’re likely to find out how different they are to ourselves and, as a result, to dislike them.”

It is a common human trait to be interested in and attracted to making new connections with other people. When you come in contact with a new person you may like them for whatever reason, such as their humour, intelligence, expertise or good looks – and mostly you like people who are a lot like you. But, as you get to know them better, you become aware of traits that you do not share with them, and from there it goes downhill and you like them less.

With this insight in mind, it seems pretty clear why some bloggers, Twitter profiles and other online influentials can have such great impact on the world around them. It is simply because they manage to build strong relationships with their followers without letting their followers get to know them too well. I, for one, actively follow Brian Solis, Jeremiah Owyang and other social media/tech sources – and I really like them. Maybe that’s only because I don’t really know them… and if I did, maybe I would not be so inclined to listen to what they write, blog, tweet and talk about?