Choosing a strategic approach to your online marketing does not only map out the field and goals (the why) for the tactics that will follow (the how). When you set a strategy, you also imply some basic assumptions about your organisation and your relation to your outside world. In Goffman’s terms: you subscribe to a framing of the situation, that will guide your understanding of what is going on.
A very common strategic framework is that of “permission”. The basic idea is that you should try to achieve people’s permission to send them your marketing material. This mindset is being pushed by over rated bald guru types such as Seth Godin (link to his blog) but is also supported by our legal frameworks: you simply need permission, of you want to send people stuff.
But let’s take a look at how permission based strategies frame the situation.
What logically happens if you frame your messages as something that people need to permit you to send them, is that your message is framed as something they don’t want or need. The other logical consequence of this framing is that people are framed as passive and you as active. So what does that do to your understanding of your own job?
In this framing of the situation, your job is to manipulate passive people who don’t want your message into accepting to get it anyway. In other words: permission based marketing will put you in a perfect spot to do all the wrong things on social platforms like Facebook, because it will effectively prevent you from seeing what is going on!
Re-framing the relation between you and your potential customers
But you don’t have to be stuck in a permission based frame. There are other ways of framing the situation. One of them is to stop asking for permission. NOW! In stead, you could begin to understand what people need online and start building your marketing strategy around that. Most people build their identity online with lots of cultural objects – and for many, most of these objects are commercial! This means that millions of people are sitting at their computers right now, actively joining fan pages on Facebook, sharing videos, web pages and links to all sorts of products and companies. Links they spent time digging out themselves (or received via friends), and are sharing as active, interested net users. These links are shared because they provide some kind of value and because they will help people express them selves! Not because someone got permission to spam them!
What if you began to view your marketing as a social value provision?
What would that do to the framing of your potential customers, your relation to them and your marketing messages? First of all, this framing implies that people are active – not passive- and you and your potential customers will be allies – joined together by the common goal of helping people to create the best image of themselves online. This will render you a provider of social value and your marketing messages will be positive and valuable contributions.
To do this, you need to obtain a slightly more sophisticated psychological model of your potential customer, than the one needed for permission based marketing. In stead of viewing people as two eyeballs producing a binary “permission/no permission output”, you need to begin to understand why people join or share stuff online. This is what I mainly blog about. And even though I rarely quote theory in my posts, it is often embedded in the framework behind them.
You can begin re-framing with my two previous posts:
A social application, Like Facebook or Twitter, is not just another communication channel - it’s an arena for self presentation and identity creation. And in such an eco system, the currency is not information, but social status!
What do you offer people, to make them join your business page on Facebook? Information about your products or company? If your company is a well known brand or in some way doing really interesting things, that may work. If you offer discounts, tricks or other treats, that may also work. But most likely what works is when your offer can be exchanged into the new internet currency: “online social status”.
Whenever we share or join stuff, it is now visible to virtually everyone we know. This doesn’t mean that information has gone out of style – not at all. But it means that social status has become the main factor, when deciding to share or join stuff. You can have really good information that I really enjoy – but if sharing it makes me loose social status – I will keep it to my self. However, if something that I actually find less interesting could increase my social status, I will most likely share it.
What converts well to social status?
There is no single rule – this is not exact science. In stead, you should ideally look at any piece of content or interactive element you put out in the social realm, and ask yourself: Will sharing or joining this make my target audience look good? Here are 3 things to get your thinking started:
Novelty: Being first to know something signals proximity. And proximity to sources of high status, easily converts to social status.
Cleverness: Sharing something clever, means that you “get it”. “Getting it” converts really well to social status.
Stupidity: Sharing something that you can point out as being really stupid, will also make you look clever – see above.
If you provide interesting information, people will read it. But if your information converts to increased social status, people will share it. And most importantly: If your message may decrease my social stauts – I just won’t show it to anyone – no matter how brilliant it is!
PS Oh yeah – and another one: Lego. Everything with Lego in it somehow converts really well to social status online. Don’t ask me why! ;o)
What is your mental model of your relation with people on Facebook? I mean: What do you think makes people become fans of your Facebook-page? What do you think drives people to share your link on Twitter?
This T-shirt represents (yet another) political cause that became a tool for self promotion and identity creation. Supported by a strong Facebook presence!
Your mental model of your user’s motivation is your basis for creating a good presence. Well… clearly that’s true for any kind of communication – but if you rely on some kind of social spreading of your messages, understanding why people spread (or refuse to spread) your content is really key. This means that the creating of anything remotely great on Facebook starts with your own mind set.
So let me ask you again: What do you think would make people want to be fan of your Facebook fanpage? If you answer: “because they want news about my company”, your are most likle wrong – very wrong. And in that case, I would guess that you view Facebook as just another communications channel – to supplement websites, email, SMS, RSS etc. But that is where you are wrong – because social applications have one really important feature - one that changes the game totally: Transparency! When people join your mailing list – only you and they know. When people visit your website – it’s also between you and them. But when people connect to you on Facebook – all of their connections can potentially see it! Since Facebook is anchored in our real social networks, joining a cause on Facebook is almost like putting up a poster in our own homes!
This transforms Facebook from just a communications channel to an arena for identity creation and self promotion. Surely, you can communicate directly into people’s feeds in a more or less traditional style – but only after they decided to join your page!! Thus, viewing your relation to people as purely information driven, will not tell you how to attract people in the first place!
So, if you want to attract people and make the want to join your cause or be fans of your business Facebook page – stop viewing your Facebook page as a mailing list and yourself as an information broker, reporting about your company and product line. In stead, begin to think of your Facebook-page as a badge, promoting some value, attitude or life style, that someone would like to wear.
Start asking: What kind of symbolic and cultural value are we providing for individual people? How can your offering make people look good (or at least not make them look bad or boring)?
(if you need help answering those questions, give me a call ;o)
Flere har spurgt efter mine slides til foredraget “Mindsurfer – en guidet tur i Facebook-brugernes hoveder” og her er de, via Slideshare.com.
Denne version af foredraget (som løbende udvikles og opdateres) blev afholdt med Wemind som vært, ved en af deres såkaldte Daybreak-sessions. Hvis du var til stede og gerne vil remindes, så er mine slides gode og nemme at forstå. Hvis du bare er nysgerrig på emnet (eller på mig som foredragsholder) så er de også værd at brug 5 minutter på. Jeg gør altid teksten på mine slides ret detaljeret, så man har en chance for at bruge dem online.
Du er naturligvis velkommen til at dele mine slides. Hvis du citerer eller stjæler centrale ideer, så angiv mig lige som kilde (F.eks. sådan her: Kilde:Anders Colding-Jørgensen ). Det er for din egen skyld – du får meget bedre karma ;o)
In the early stages of a band, a grass-root movement or any kind of loose organisation, a web presence is often used as a means of constituting the organisation; “we are represented online – therefore we are”.
If you’re a band – a MySpace page with some music added, constitutes your band and links it to a specific name, a musical style and some specific people. If you’re a looser organisation, such as grass-roots movement or e.g. a student organisation – it is very likely that you will consider using a Facebook group as your online constitution (That someone after a meeting will suggest “hey – I’ll go home and create a Facebook group”). This is why I suggest that you don’t always do that:
If your organisation is driven by a few people, who just need to get in touch with the rest (who are on Facebook anyway), a Facebook group could do the job. It is just an elaborated mailing-list which will allow you to post to people’s inboxes with simple text mail and a link.
But if you are cause based and want to create a larger popular movement and/or to support a more complex power- and information structure, the tools in a Facebook group do not support the horizontal communication, which is needed. Facebook groups have a discussion tool, but it is technically outdated. For example, you need to visit the individual threads in the forum, to find out if something that interests you has occurred. You can post both text and links but the newest postings are located last?!
But not only the discussion tools are problematic and will definitely slow down your process. The other tools, such as wall, photo and video albums, are clumsy and will involve a lot of scrolling and clicking, to keep up to date with any debate.
How do people communicate in cause based Facebook groups?
In the spring of 2009, as a part of a psychological experiment, I created a Facebook protest group that went from 125 to 27.500 members in two weeks. The cause of the group was totally fictitious as the group protested against the demolition of a famous danish fountain – the Stork Fountain (Storkepringvandet). After the experiment, I started investigating the causes of growth and the communication that went on. I created a survey, which 729 people responded to and furthermore included qualitative data from the group itself.
Several people were on to the experimental nature of the group (which was not difficult, since it was revealed by me in the discussion forum – and on this blog) and they felt a healthy need to warn the members of the group that it was fake. This actually gave me a great dynamics for testing the efficiency of the horizontal communication-tools. If it worked, the group should stop growning or actually end up only consisting of people who wanted to follow the experiment.
The result was depressing: it was very difficult for these people to communicate to others that the group was “not real”. This was mainly because people didn’t use the group for information, but as a “badge”, to communicate their support for the cause to themselves and others. Lots of people reported that they read the group description, and joined. Some of them shared the group to friends or wrote a message on the wall, but very little of the wall posts were containing direct messages or questions directed at other people (2,7%). In stead of discussion, the wall contained almost the same 5-6 messages, repeated over and over again. Some were outraged, some asked if the birds on the fountain were really storks, others complained about related cases and then there were the people who tried to “blow the whistle”. And these people who warned about the experimental nature of the group, could see their wall posts being quickly washed down by new ones – as the group grew by 2-3 new members each minute!
The only one who had real communication power in the group was me – the creator. Only I could influence the context of the group, delete messages (which I very rarely did), change pictures and reveal “thruths”. The fact that I actually wrote in the group description that more info was available in the forum, made it even more disturbing that almost 75% of the group embers, later reported that they thought that the Stork Fountain might be facing demolition.
My conclusion is that Facebook-groups are brilliantly suited for promoting (or branding) a single cause which people will join if it fits within their values and online identity. And if you don’t reach 5000 members, it is even possible to contact your supporters directly. But if you try to create any kind of democratic movement which needs horizontal communication an decision power, a Facebook-group is a BAD tool!
A thought: What if the group had been against the fact that 80% of immigrant men hit their women every week? As far as I know, that would have been a totally fictitious group – but how would you stop it from spreading? Facebook groups are mainly used as online social accessories by regular users and are joined by a simple and cheap click. But once joined, the group can spread – and even if the group is closed down, the meme of the group is still stored in many people’s memories, where it can be used to mobilize you to various causes.
Marketing via social media is smart indeed. In stead of paying companies to spread your message (e.g. via ads from Google), you get the users to spread it themselves. What a great idea!
But there is one tricky part: it’s called “free will” and even though there is philosophical debate over it’s existence, it can still kill your campaigns.
What if people don’t spread your message? What if there is no buzz on blogs, Facebook, Twitter? What if the comment fields below your Youtube-videos remain empty? Then it’s really, really tempting to start writing the comments yourself, as if they came from a cheerful crowd of grass roots. But when you do that, you have crossed the line to astroturfing. Astroturfing is the discipline of faking public interest and has it’s origin in politics – it’s also known as “rent-a-crowd”.
But this is why it works – at least in the short run:
Many phenomena – bot offline and online ( like the now infamous “Karen26″ campaign from VisitDenmark ) are not primarily spread socially by their contents alone. Often it’s only when a video, Facebook-group etc starts attracting interest, will it become interesting to the masses. Imagine that you see 100.000 people looking at the same object in the street on your way to work. What are the chances that you will look at it as well? The social interest itself makes the object more interesting – no matter what the object is. So if you can fake interest, more interest is more likely to follow.
Getting a high ranking on Google by creating link farms and thereby tricking google into thinking that your content is interesting is related to astroturfing, but there is a difference. When you hack Google, you trick a machine – when you astroturf, you trick people. (And if you do it badly, you end up in the Rachel Maddow show as seen below about 1 minute into the clip ).
The FACES of Coal campaign is a clear cut case of astroturfing, but what in the case of Karen26? Apparently, a seeding agency was used (GoViral?!) to plant it – and most importantly – to get the media hooked. My own first knowledge of the case came from a danish news reporter, who mailed me and wanted to know if I had any gossip and personally I think that the video would have flopped if it wasn’t for online newspapers. But is seeding astroturfing? And is it wrong?
I will not moralize here – it’s not my thing. And I can not draw the excact line between astroturfing and seeding. But I can give you one reason why I think it’s really unhealthy to use deception and try to hack people’s free wills into spreading your message:
It will not address the main issue here: that your product probably sucks. Fix it!
A few minutes ago, I noticed that the Denmark based CMS company, Mono.net, had begun running Google ads on the “Danish mother seeking” keywords. The ad says “Do like Karen from Denmark – and create a free website at mono.net”
As you may know, Mindjumpers actually were the first to suggest Mono.net as the company behind the viral video-campagin – “Danish Mother Seeking”, posted by the Youtube account, “KarenDK26″. Even though this definitely does not look like one of the founders of Mono.net, as stated in the post, the analysis behind the suggestion is correct, since Mono.net has a lot to win from this campagin.
Mono.net is hosting the really amateurish website, where the fictional Karen figure (a.k.a. Ditte Arnth ) presents herself and her little son. I can’t really remember if anyone actually checked this with Mono.net – but they have had quite a silent life, since their launch over a year ago, so a good viral campagin could be just what they needed.
But even if they didn’t make the campaign, they are now riding the viral wave and cashing in on it with ads on Google. Good for you, folks@Mono – enjoy the ride ;o)
Jonas from Mindjumpers hits the issues spot on in this post, when he asks if the ends of this campaing justify the means? Will this campaign be accepteded if a company is behind it? This kind of Social Media Marketing is about companies going under cover and in this case using deception. But are there any new ethical issues at play here?
Lots of people have shown “Karen” their love and respect on YouTube – and not any cause can emerge and claim responsibility for this campagin and profit from it. A purely commercial organisation will most likely recieve some blame for the deception used – but cleverly handled, the blame can be turned in to some branding value. But that can back fire. So if the video is purely commercial, chances are that the people behind could be discussing wether to come forward at all! That would actually be really cool (if you prefer mysteries to marketing) but that would also put pressure from the press on the young actor to tell who hired her. Not a very stable situation.
Alternatively (hello – are you reading this?) they could call up a charity organization with a related cause and ask if they want “to adopt” the video. If a non-profit organisation is promoting an important cause – e.g. related to condoms or children, the public would probably be more forgiving. But none of the organisations that have been mentioned until now have seemed likely yet.
There is a third option: The only one who have profited from this until now is the actor, Ditte. She has been “discovered” by the press – but wasn’t that really only a matter of hours?! She’s actually on Facebook! So if this her work, I would like to congratulate her (As Daniel from Nodes does). She is a really sweet girl and if she makes a video where se tells everyone that she is an actor and that she is very sorry that she lied – that could be a viral semi-hit too.
Is online guerilla marketing, like this video, just another marketing message like we see them in any media – old or new? Or should we re-think our ethics as media change and the commercial can invade the social space with increasing speed, scale and aggression?
Some videos spread aggressively on the internet – and some don’t. And even though it is as difficult to write a formula for at hit video as it is for at hit song, there are some key elements about “Danish mother seeking” that we can identify. Key elements that most likely helped it spread.
1. It’s a “first”. Well actually I am pretty sure that it isn’t – but that’s not important as long as it’s percieved as a novel idea. Wanting to be the one who shows another person something new is a very powerful driver in sharing content and messages.
2. The video is very vague. A general rule says that the less details and information you have, the more details and info your brain will produce to fill in the gaps. So when “Karen” sits in a totally anonymous living room and doesn’t seem to remember anything about the father – it leaves room for our own imagination. You actually start filling in details that you find credible to make the story work. And I would prefer your own details over mine anyday, if I was to manipulate you. You just make a much better job convincing you than I could ever do.
3. The girl in the video is friendly. She is constantly flirting with the camera – smiling, making eye contact with her big blue eyes. Looking at friendly faces is something that we are hard wired to like from birth. Actually, anything with big eyes will appeal to us – babies, young girls, kittens. Being able to pick out the faces that are friendly towards us has been cruzial to our very existence from the dawn of man (and woman) .
4. The girl is attractive – but in a certain way. She looks alot like the girl you were secretly in love with in seventh grade. She presents her self as very innocent – but the whole situation reveals that she is not, since she has sex with strangers. A really sweet looking girl looking shy and mentioning drunk sex with strangers is a perfect combination of the madonna/whore in one. Thus, she probably hits a soft (or hard?) spot with many men.
A portfolio shot of the actor behind "Karen" - taken from her website.
5. The video contains is a mystery – a riddle. Something that wants to be solved. Finding out if this was a hoax or a real video, definitely made a significant impact on the spreading of it. There’s always both the message (the actual video) and the meta-discussions of the message (is this real/stupid/too much?) to drive people to share and view your content. As the buzz grows, people will join only to see what others are talking about – this is when the crowd mentality kicks in. And this also shows the importance of seeding and getting it in the old media, such as TV and Newspapers, since most people dont’ pick up on the first wave of the video – but actually only watch it to find out what everybody is talking about.
6. There is a genuine cry for help. Judging from the comments on YouTube, lots of people are genuinely touched by this womans story and sends her love, respect and encouragement. Genuine heplfullness is still a strong driver in all our actions and utilizing the good in us all can be powerful – but it can also backfire on you, when people find out that they have been decieved ( an issue also being debated by Mindjumpers ). And again, it is probably very important that this poor person is very attractive – I really cannot imagine a boring looking person with no charisma getting the same effect. We like to help – but we prefer to help attractive people.
Following these principles will not guarantee you a “viral” succes video – but if you are not obeying to any of them, that is probably why your video has not attracted a large audience.
Earlier today, I wrote a post about the YouTube.video “Danish Mother Seeking” by KarenDK26. I stated that I was almost positive that this was a “false” video and that “Karen” was a fictional character. It was based upon my first impression and using a bit of psychology and a lot of common sense.
Meanwhile, it took only a few hours using my network on Twitter and Facebook, before I found her – with her picture, name and everyting. So now I know if Karen is a real or a fictional character. And guess what? I am not going to spoil the fun by telling anyone.
Thanks to @secrettwitterfriend – you know who you are.
This was posted on 12th of september at 6:18 PM – do you know of anyone who found her earlier than this?
This morning, I was contacted by a reporter from a major Danish TV-station, who wanted to know more about this video of an alleged 26 years old woman, calling out to the unknown father of her son on YouTube. The video also displays a link to a website (http://karen26.mono.net/ ), where we can see more pictures of “Karen and her little son, August”. So I watched the video and started Twitting about it, to see if anybody knows anything. Tweets are coming in as this is written.
In my opinion, this is clearly a marketing stunt. It’s just a question about who’s behind it. On Twitter, a condom manufacturer and Danish tourist organizations are the most popular guesses. The people behind http://mono.net, who host her amateurish website, have also been mentioned by Thilde Vesterby at Mindjumpers.
This is what makes me think that “Karen’s” story is pure fiction:
1. “Karen” doesn’t remember the father’s name, appearance or nationality. This doesn’t correspond well with basic knowledge about human memory: Unusual events are often stored more efficiently in memory than ordinary events.
“Karen” doesn’t present herself as promiscuous, thus we must assume that meeting a foreign man and bringing him home with her is not something she experiences regularly. Therefore it seems unlikely that she wouldn’t have remembered what this person looked like or where he was from – or what he was called, if they ever did exchange names.
If they had sex on the harbor without talking much, perhaps there would be no names exchanged. But they apparently talked about such clichés as “hygge”, which points towards a somewhat formal setting. In such a setting, it is more likely that they had exchanged names than the opposite. Furthermore, they apparently walked home together, which made it even more likely that they exchanged names. Since foreign names are often more unusual to you than names in your own language, it is more likely that she would have remembered his name, than forgotten it.
If this was a viral campaign, a name on the father – or even a description or a nationality, would have limited the amount of people who were potentially touched by it. Therefore this supports the theory that this is fiction.
2. “Karen” doesn’t look emotionally affected by the situation. Her face and eye movements reflect no inner conflict or emotions.
For example, “Karen” tries to give an impression of shamefulness, when she mentions her not remembering much from that evening. But it never affects her facial expressions, which remain the same no matter what she says. If this was a somewhat improvised presentation, I would have expected her to move her eyes a lot more around as se searched for words or became embarrassed. This doesn’t happen – she looks into the camera, quite friendly and secure all the time.
3. Her website is under-presenting her, compared to Danes in general.
In some other countries, it is impolite to ask people about their profession, but in Denmark, our occupation is a key component in our identity. It is unlikely that a real Danish girl would not reveal her occupation as one of the first things, when she made a webpage about herself. “Living alone with my son” is less likely to be the tag line of a young Danish woman’s personal website. A Danish woman would define herself as much more that a mother.
4. The “hygge” discussion is a cliché, more popular in Denmark than abroad
The only people I have EVER heard tell me that “hygge” (coziness) is something so uniquely Danish and that it can’t be translated have been Danish. It is a cliché that is mainly used in relation to tourism and not a fact that is well known outside Denmark. Thus, it is more likely that this has been fabricated than real.
5. Do the pictures and video show a mother and her child?
The pictures are quite elaborated, though – different settings and clothes – and some less flattering. This could actually be her own kid – but some (vague) signs suggest that it isn’t.
In the picture of Karen and her kid reading a book (above), she covers the pages of the book with her hand. That is not a usual situation, if a mother is reading or looking at pictures with her child. It is more likely a thing you do when you want to prevent the kid from moving the book until the picture has been taken.
In the next picture of Karen almost kissing the kid (right), the child looks a bit surprised by “Karen’s” appearing so close. This may off course be a coincidence, but it could also be a sign that this woman’s face is not familiar – perhaps because she is not the mother of that child.
In the video, the child also looks quite curious at both the room and “Karen”, which suggests that neither are familiar sights to him. If you follow the child’s eyes – he may actually be looking at someone to our left of the camera, but that could actually be anything – and another person is not required to operate the camera.
An why doesn’t “Karen” show any pictures of her and little August where he is an infant? The kid doesn’t seem to age much on the pictures shown on the site, where it is always summertime ;o)
Conclusion
This is with almost certainty a fictional video and it is most likely a part of a marketing campagin. But is it Danish Tourism or Condoms? You may disagree og have even more evidence for or against my conclusion – feel free to post it here…
Når man har brug for et website der giver et alibi, men alligevel ikke leverer varen, så laver man et un-site. Det gjorde Finansrådet i 2003 – og det har TDC vist gjort.
Danskere er generelt utroligt loyale over for deres bank og det er ikke usædvanligt at jeg hører folk fortælle hvordan de blev både rørte og taknemmelige over at få bevilliget et lån af deres bankrådgiver.
Men en bankrådgiver er en sælger – og banklån er helt banale produkter, som har priser og som man med fordel kan købe nogle steder frem for andre, men det kræver at man er i stand til at sammenligne prisen på ydelserne hos forskellige udbydere.
I 2003 var man hos Finansrådet begyndt at frygte at man ville blive mødt med lovgivning som ville tvinge bankerne til at skabe større transparens og gøre det muligt for kunderne at sammenligne priser og dermed flytte hen hvor prisen på lån og bankydelser var billigst. Dette kunne jo skabe en kundeflugt for især de store gamle banker med relativt ukonkurrencedygtige renter og gebyrer.
Men hvad gør man, når man gerne vil vise at branchen selv kan løse problemet og at politisk indgriben dermed er unødvendig, men man for guds skyld ikke ønsker at skabe reel transparens?
Man laver da et “un-site”!
I slutningen af 2003, lancerede man derfor http://pengeinstitutternespriser.dk (se hvordan sitet så ud i 2003 via archive.org ) – et site der angiveligt var netop det værktøj som kunderne efterspurgte. Her kunne man finde priser på pengeinstitutternes ydelser som var friske og leveret af de enkelte banker. Der var bare lige én funktion man havde glemt – sammenligningsfunktionen. Det var ganske enkelt ikke muligt at bede om at se det billigste lån eller at sammenline priserne på tværs af flere pengeinstitutter. For at finde den billigste bank, skulle man altså besøge samtlige banker enkeltvis!
Og der var ikke tale om at man i 2003 ikke havde de tekniske muligheder. Det er ikke sværere at sortere efter en pris end det er at sortere f.eks. alfabetisk, som man gjorde på sitet. Og når man begyndte at kigge sitet efter, blev det klart at der var tale om et site som ikke var beregnet på at levere varen – men et un-site, der var beregnet på at se ud som om man leverede varen.
Og når man kiggede sitet igennem med de briller, var det nærmest pinligt tydeligt. Selve URL’en – pengeinstitutternespriser.dk er nok en af historiens længste og mest bøvlede at huske og skrive. Men hvis det ikke er meningen at man skal besøge sitet, er det perfekt. Og når man kigger på sitets opbygning er der masser af andre eksempler. Søgingen på sitet er omstændig og selvom man får lov at gemme banker i sin liste og al hjælpetekst er eksemplarisk pædagogisk, er sitet helt tydeligt ikke lagt an på at man skal kunne finde ud af hvad en bestemt ydelser koster på tværs af banker.
Bankerne modtog stor kritik for sitet men først i januar 2006 kom Finansrådet – med Forbrugerrådets hjælp, på banen med http://pengepriser.dk som indeholder mulighed for sammenligning.
Hvem sagde TDC Play?
Man behøver ikke at rejse tilbage i tiden for at finde et site som virker som om det er et un-site, som angivligt leverer en vare, men gør det noget modstræbende. Et af de stærkeste “value adding” tilbud idag er TDC’s Play-service (nu efterfulgt af en lignende fra Telia), som giver enhver der køber sit bredbånd hos TDC en stort set ubegrænset adgang til at hente al musikken på deres musikwebshop ned til sin PC – ganske gratis.
Tjenesten fungerer som et stærkt argument i en salgssituation og det er faktisk også et ret fedt tilbud. Men hvis man efterfølgende vælger at anvende tjenesten opdager man at den, som i ovenstående tilfælde er, er ualmindeligt ufiks at bruge. Nuvel, den fungerer, men det er som om at søgningen bevidst er lidt dummere end den behøvede at være og at søgeresultaterne er klemt inde i en kalustrofobisk boks på sitet. Jeg her flere gange forsøgt at finde et stykke klassisk musik og har måttet opgive, hvis jeg ikke kendte den nøjagtige titel.
Jeg kender ikke TDC’s betalingsmodel for musikken, men selve sitets opbygning siger noget om at den er forbrugsafregnet og at TDC derfor har en helt kold og kontant interesse i at vi bruger sitet så lidt som muligt – ellers havde det måske lignet Grooveshark lidt mere?
Psykologer og adfærdsbiologer opererer med en distinktion imellem vores handlingers mål og formål. Målene er dem vi selv oplever og handler på, formålene er de overlevelsesmæssige faktorer som handlingerne skal fremme. Et eksempel: når vi har sex, sker det ofte fordi vi oplever en drift imod målet, nemlig udløsning. Selve handlingen har det formål at føre arten videre, men det oplever vi ikke direkte. Derfor kan vi f.eks. snyde vores krop med udløsning som ikke fører til forplantning.
Når vi spiser, har vi ligeledes et oplevet mål, som styrer os. Målet er nemlig at opretholde et højt blodsukker. Falder blodsukkeret, føler vi os sultne og spiser. Formålet er at sikre at vores krop kan overleve på både kortere og længere sigt – bl.a. ved at vi sammen med sukkeret indtager alle de næringsstoffer vi har brug for. Men vi kan ikke mærke formålet – kun målet. I dag kan vi isolere druesukkeret og for eksempel drikke Faxe Kondi og derpå opleve mæthed. Da målet er opfyldt, ophører vi med at indtage næring og kroppens formål, kroppens overlevelse, bliver kun delvist opfyldt – da vi jo kun får sukkeret og ikke alle de mange andre næringstoffer vi har brug for.
Når man spiser sig mæt i sukker som ikke også indeholder det fulde spektrum af næringsstoffer, taler vi om tomme kalorier. Og det kan føre til mangelsygdomme hvis man udelukkende snyder sit system til at opleve mæthed med f.eks. sodavand.
Udviklingen i hhv social interaktion og brug af elektroniske medier
Men hvad nu hvis sociale medier også er en slags tomme kalorier, som opfylder en masse oplevede mål, men ikke formår at tjene et dybere formål ved menneskelige relationer, nemlig at holde os fysisk sunde og raske?
Dr.Aric Sigman påstår i sin artikel i tidsskriftet Biologist, “Well Connected?: The Biological Implications of ‘Social Networking” (Sigman, 2009) at manglende direkte social interaktion kan påvises at hænge sammen med en lang række fysiske forandringer hos mennesker.
Sigman gennemgår i artiklen en lang række forskningsdata som bl.a. påviser hvordan mennesker med mindre social kontakt kan opleve mindre modstandskraft over for influenza (men også en mindre risiko for at blive smittet, må man formode) men også en markant øget risiko for demens og blodpropper. For eksempel udløser fysisk berøring og kram stoffet “oxytocin” hos mennesker – et stof som kan medføre nedsat risiko for hjerte-kar sygdomme.
Sigman går så vidt som til at inddrage undersøgelser som viser at en del af vores genom (209 gener) rent faktisk er socialt påvirkeligt og at vi i yderste konsekvens kan påvirke vores arvemasse ved at ophøre med at være fysisk sociale med hinanden.
Sigman påstår ikke direkte at sociale medier fører til sygdom, men påviser hvordan den direkte interaktion i konstant stigende grad bliver erstattet af eletronisk interaktion og hvordan manglende interaktion kan føre til fysiske forandringer. Hans forskning bygger altså på undersøgelse af manglende social kontakt i det hele taget – og ikke på at ens sociale kontakt i stigende grad bliver dækket af sociale netværkstjenester. Man kan derfor kritisere ham for ikke at undersøge i hvor høj grad det er sundere at have adgang til at kommunikere med mennesker via nettet end slet ikke at have noget at kommunikere med.
Men én ting ligger fast – for under alle omsændigheder mister vi den fysiske berøring ved at mødes på Facebook frem for på Cafeen. Vi mister krammene, lugtene, mimiken samt de følelsesmæssige reaktioner der kommer af at være tvunget til at respondere nu og her, frem for f.eks. at kunne slukke PC’en og besvare en kommentar når vi lige synes vi har lyst.
Og hvis vi antager at vi kan få dækket en lang række oplevede mål med interaktionen, nemlig at opnå anerkendelse, socialt tilhørsforhold, informationer og underholdning, ved at tjekke Facebook, men at vi samtidig bliver fysisk dårligere ved at undvære fysisk kontakt, så er det altså ikke meget sundere at dække sine sociale behov på Facebook end det er at drikke sig mæt i Faxe Kondi.
En af de ting der virkelig kan undre mig er når selv professionelle kommunikationsfolk behandler social media markedsføring som en kreativ proces – altså en proces hvor det handler om at skabe en viral effekt ved hjælp af kreativt beåndede overskrifter
Nuvel, alt der handler om at skabe kræver en eller anden form for kreativitet. Men jeg ser alt for tit at titler og illustrationer på f.eks. Facebook-pages ikke fortæller hvad sagen handler om, men istedet viser mundrette og lækkert klingende navne og catchy illustrationer – og ofte er de alt for kreative til at virke!
“Vidunderlivet”?
Hvad tror du f.eks. at Facebook-applikationen med titlen “Vidunderlivet” handler om?! Den handler om at undgå HPV (human papillomavirus), som kan give livmoderhalskræft. Aaah – smart, tænker du. Men faktum er at applikationen og den page der hører til helt sikkert ville have fået langt større udbredelse hvis man var lidt mindre kreativ og ganske enkelt beskrev indholdet og dermed hovedkonflikten i titlen.
“I do 30″?
En kampagne som “I do 30” (som jeg ellers bruger i mit foredrag som en sublimt eksempel på at man markedsfører essensen af en virksomhed frem for virksomheden selv) er et andet eksempel på en kampagne som anvender et sjovt og fikst slogan som ikke siger hvad kampagnen handler om. Kan du gætte det? Kampagnen handler om at opfordre folk til at vaske deres tøj ved 30 grader – og er sponsoreret af Novozymes som netop laver de enzyer der gør koldtvandsvask mulig. Genialt tænkt – men desværre alt for kreativt eksekveret.
Hovedbudskabet og konflikten virker mere effektivt
I en spørgeskemaundersøgelse jeg foretog blandt over 700 medlemmer af en Facebook-gruppe, bad jeg folk om at rate de forskellige elementer af en gruppes tekst – incl titlen – og fortælle hvilke der havde gjort stærkest indtryk på dem. Resultaterne viser helt entydigt at de elementer af tekst/titel som folk reagerede stærkest på var dem som klart og tydeligt indeholdt hovedbudskabet. Alle andre havde markant mindre effekt.
Den effektive overskrift er derfor alt andet lige ikke den som skaber forvirring, undren og nysgerrighed og som man skal klikke på for at få opklaret hvad kampagnen handler om. Overlad den slags til Billedbladet. Den effektive overskrift banker problemstillingen fast lige der i titlen. Hvis der desuden findes en konflikt, en uretfærdighed eller måske endda en modstander, så få dem med op i titlen også.
Ok, kloge Anders – hvad ville du selv have gjort?
I de to ovenstående eksempler ville jeg have valgt langt mindre lækre og elegante titler. Og jeg ville f.eks. have inddraget følgende elementer direkte i titlen:
Hovedbudskabet - altså hvad kampagnen handler om. Hhv at ”forebygge” og at “vaske tøj ved 30 grader”.
Konflikten/fjenden – hhv “livmoderhalskræft” og “Co2 forurening” som en fjende/uretfærdighed etc. som man kan alliere sig imod ved at klikke “join”
Først dernæst ville jeg begynde at være kreativ og prøve at bygge disse elementer sammen i en titel så den var let at afkode og huske og f.eks. ikke virkede alt for moraliserende eller skræmmende. Derpå ville jeg teste den af og se efter to ting:
Forståelighed – fatter man hvad det her handler om når man har hørt titlen?
Signalværdi - f.eks: “hvis denne titel stod på et badge – kunne du så finde på at gå med det?”
Folk læser ikke din Facebook-page som de f.eks. læser bøger – og de læser den SLET ikke som du selv gør. De klikker omkring med en stor del af deres bevidsthed andre steder. De tillader sig at scanne en side på helt andre måder end du havde planlagt og der er en stor chance for at mange aldrig fatter at det her vedkommer dem, hvis man ikke kommunikerer stringent og effektivt.
Så hvor den kreative elegance og den rå effektive kommunikation konflikter, foreslår jeg at du dropper kreativiteten og gemmer den til eventuelle kunstprojekter.
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A social application, Like Facebook or Twitter, is not just another communication channel - it’s an arena for self presentation and identity creation. And in such an eco system, the currency is not information, but social status!
Når man har brug for et website der giver et alibi, men alligevel ikke leverer varen, så laver man et un-site. Det gjorde Finansrådet i 2003 – og det har TDC vist gjort.
Psykologer og adfærdsbiologer opererer med en distinktion imellem vores handlingers mål og formål. Målene er dem vi selv oplever og handler på, formålene er de overlevelsesmæssige faktorer som handlingerne skal fremme. Et eksempel: når vi har sex, sker det ofte fordi vi oplever en drift imod målet, nemlig udløsning. Selve handlingen har det formål at føre arten videre, men det oplever vi ikke direkte. Derfor kan vi f.eks. snyde vores krop med udløsning som ikke fører til forplantning. 
