Significance and Exclusivity

Dr. Howard talks about the importance of significance when marketing a social website. Significance is a very interesting concept. I remember a fitness website a couple of my friends were into last year. The site was invitation only. I have to admit that my interest was piqued simply by the fact that I could not immediately go into the site and poke around.

However, having to wait for an invite also turned me away from the site. It took a week or two for my email to come that granted me access to the site, and by then, I simply wasn't as interested. Maybe it was the wait and maybe it had to do with me not being all that interested in fitness. In any case, I think implementing exclusivity with a site can be a very fine line to walk.

Dr. Howard uses Facebook as an example of a successful site that grew from its exclusivity. But I think it's important to realize that Facebook's exclusivity happened by accident. The site started as a tool for all students at one specific college to use. As more and more people heard about the site, it started branching out to other colleges until eventually it was available worldwide.

While Facebook's exclusivity may have helped it become more significant and desirable, Facebook had no original intention of going worldwide. It was simply meant a tool for everyone at one college. It was never intended to go larger. This makes Facebook's growth and popularity seem like a natural phenomenon than a business plan.

So what of websites with the business plan to build exclusivity and eventually go large? Do they have the patience to start small, like Facebook and slowly build themselves to global popularity? I think it's possible, but I also think it's more difficult when you have that high level of popularity as a starting goal. It would appear that you have to set small goals and then work your way up.

But, there's a problem with starting small as well. As Dr. Howard mentioned, Facebook users felt betrayed when the site became all inclusive. College students across the country had found a place to hang out among friends. Including mom and dad and random other people ruined the exclusive community they had found.

How do you start small and go big without alienating your audience? I'm not sure it's possible. As Dr. Howard explains, when you start off exclusive, you are not looking for the everyday user. You are looking for influential people who can spread the word about your site. As with the fitness website, I image it didn't hurt them much that I didn't hold interest in the site since they were looking for interested people who could spread the word. Clearly that wasn't me.

But when you change your site to inclusive, you are no longer looking for the influential. Word of your site has spread. Now you are looking for numbers, so you want the everyday users. Maybe some people leave the site because the exclusivity has gone. Ideally, the number of people who leave will be much smaller than the number of people who come in (if the site changes from exclusive to inclusive at the right time). But I think this all take careful planning and patience. Business hoping to "make it big" quick are going to be disappointed.

I think it's important to also note that significance isn't just built through exclusivity. While exclusivity may have helped people come to Facebook, I believe many people stayed because they had found another form of significance -- the ability to connect with friends and family in ways they hadn't been able to before. I believe a site can build significance for itself without being exclusive. I also believe that building significance beyond exclusivity is also important because exclusivity in and of itself is not enough to make users stay, just enough to attract users. And that's where the rest of RIBS comes in.

Simple and Unexpected

In our reading for this week, Heath and Heath discussed the principles of simplicity and unexpectedness. I want to draw attention to this anti-smoking ad that I think uses those principles well.

Everyone knows that smoking is bad for you, even people who smoke. It's common sense at this point because people have heard the phrase over and over again. But as Heath and Heath discuss, common sense isn't memorable. We already know it, so having it repeated to us over and over again, just makes our eyes gloss over and our ears turn off. "We know it already. You don't need to tell us again!"

So instead of trying to reinforce the idea that smoking is bad, this ad used surprise to convince adults to quit smoking. Children walked up to the smoking adults and asked if they could have a light (a surprising situation in and of itself). The adults immediately started telling the kids why they shouldn't smoke, and the kids handed the adults a slip of paper.

"You worry about me, but what about yourself?"

This, I think holds both surprise and simplicity. The surprise comes in when the adults have their own logic turned upon themselves. They hadn't expected it. And simplicity is in the message "care about yourself." All of the adults kept their papers. Most threw away their cigarette, and the hotline saw a 40% increase in calls to quit smoking.

The message stuck because of the simple message and the use of surprise.

Belonging Tools vs Forming Relationships

Chapter 6 is on belonging, and this is probably the only chapter in the book that I do not agree with. The chapter seems to focus on the idea that initiation rituals, origin stories, leveling up, mythologies, etc. create a sense of belonging. And while I agree that those things can help, I do not agree those things are what makes people feel like they belong in a group.

I honestly cannot remember being part of any initiation ritual that didn't feel like was a complete waste of my time, even if it was with a group/org I knew I would like and wanted to be in. In my experience, initiation rituals always feel like a forced show of how happy everyone is that you are joining them, especially when it is a group where you know no one.

While origin stories, leveling up, mythologies, symbols, etc. may be ways to symbolize your connection to a group, ultimately these things carry very little meaning. I've joined many a community, group, online game, etc where I experienced these "belonging tools" but I didn't stick around. That fact was that those groups lacked what I was looking for -- connections with other people. I wanted to form relationships with people who cared about the same things I did. That's what I needed to feel like I belonged, and origin stories, leveling up, mythologies, symbols, etc. didn't make those connections that I needed happen.

For example, in highschool I went to a summer camp for two weeks. The first week, I was with a group of girls and we all clicked really well. It was the most fun I had ever had at a summer camp. The second week, we got a new group, and we didn't get along as well. The camp still went through the same initiation rituals and the same stories and games. But my sense of belonging had changed. It had nothing to do with belonging techniques and everything to do with the relationships I had formed.

As another example, I recently joined a "Once Upon a Time" group on Facebook. On the first day, I felt like I belonged. There were no origin stories, no initiation rituals, no ways of leveling up. However, I was in a group of people who cared about a TV show just as passionately as did. I connected with people instantly, and this is what made me feel like I belonged.

While I believe Dr. Howard's tools for belonging may help users develop a sense of social presence within a group, I do not believe they are what ultimately makes people feel like they belong. It's the relationships people form within groups that creates belonging, and without these social connections, people will stop participating in the group, regardless of the belonging tools used. 

Remuneration -- User Experience

Remuneration. It's such a strange word. I hadn't heard it before reading this book, and I decided to look up a deffinition of it online. I found that often "remuneration" is refered to as payment or something one recieves in return for something else. In his book, Dr. Howard explains remuneration by relating it to the experience users recieve when participating in a social media site, such as Facebook users being able to connect with the people they care about.

As I think about it, I realize that I used to be much more active on online communities and socail networking sites. Today, I only use Facebook and occasionally Blogger. But when I was in highschool, I had a number of discussion forums that I would participate in. Over time, a few of those forums began to lose membership. As the forums became less and less active, I wasn't get the same experience I had come to enjoy and eventually I too stopped coming. Maybe (as Dr. Howard mentions in his book) seeding could have been done to keep the discussion boards lively or events could have been held to help form connections between members.

A year or so ago, I liked to participate in Yahoo!Answers. However the people on there could be very mean and cruel. Eventually, I stopped going to get away from all the drama. Yahoo!Answers uses stars on messages to show membership contribution levels and it ranks the value of members' messages, but it doesn't stop the trolls from showing up everywhere.

I only use my Blogger account for school blogs and the occasional personal blog. Since I don't have people that regularly follow or comment on my blogs, they are only occasionally updated when I have the notion. I realize that if my experiences were different, I might use the blog more.

Come to think of it, it's a wonder I use Facebook. When I first joined, not many of my friends were using it, so I didn't actually start using Facebook until a year after I had created my account (once more of my friends started using it). Now that I am out of undergrad, I notice that I use Facebook less because my classmates are also using it less. It may be that one day I stop using Facebook as well.

So, yeah, it's all about remuneration. And over time remuneration can change. I think that's something business need to look out for. Just because things are going great for a site now does not mean that the site will continue for years and years to come. Remuneration is a constant and changing process, and if it's not kept up, users will leave and go somewhere else.

Tools Change, Communication Doesn't

In Howard's book, there was a header titled "Technology Changes; People Don't." Howard argues that there have been many communication revolutions in the past (one major example being the printing press). He states that Hiltz and Turoff were able to predict the impact of social media because of "fundamental social needs" of human beings. Everyone wants to communicate, and although our needs for communication don't change, the tools we use to communicate do.

The people at Twitter had never expected the site to be crucial to the the Iranian protests. But the way the site was built, such as the ease of using hashtags, enabled people to communicate in quick and easy ways they wouldn't have been able to otherwise. Protesters were able to communicate their inside views, and outsiders were able to show and express their support. People all over the world were able to connect and communicate with each other without leaving their living rooms.

In chapter 3, Shuen explains the unexpected popularity of Linkedin and Facebook. The websites took off as they allowed people to find, connect with, and share information with people they cared about or wanted to know. Just like with Twitter, people flocked to the sites once they realized the ease of use at which they could communication. Just like the printing press, social media sites like Twitter, Linkedin, and Facebook provided people with new communication tools.

Even the web 2.0 video we watched for homework a few weeks ago demonstrates how our desire to communicate hasn't changed, just the tools we use.

Shuen points out that businesses can learn from these social media sites as far as how to promote communication within their organizations as well as what value there can be sharing even basic information.

Tell Them a Story

Our reading for Monday and last Wednesday has been about telling stories, and I couldn't help but think of Michelle Obama's DNC speech, where she tells the story of her family growing up.

The video is 25mins long, but the actual story takes place in the first 10mins. She talks about her father and the fact that he had multiple sclerosis. Despite being in daily pain, her father was determined to make it to work every day, to put food on the table for his family, and to put his children through college. "You see," Michelle says, "for him that's what it meant to be a man."

She explains that her family lived under the idea that if you work hard and do good by each other, then you can achieve anything (the classic American Dream). And she explains that when she met Barack, she knew he had been raised under the same ideal.

In our reading of Squirrel Inc, it is mentioned that often the best person to tell a story is someone who the story didn't actually happen to. I imagine President Obama is under a lot of pressure and his mind is on the coming election. Maybe he couldn't have told his story effectively because it would have been too jumbled with everything that is currently going on.

But Michelle was able to tell it through the telling of her own story. But what is interesting is she didn't just tell Barack's story, she also told the story of the middle-class American people. Made to Stick mentions "Connection Plots," and while the story itself was about how Michelle and Barack connect over their values, it was also about how the middle-class American people and the First Man and Lady of the United States connect in their values.

In Squirrel Inc, it is explained that telling stories can reveal who someone is and build trust. Stories can also reveal values and bring insight into decisions that are made through those values. By telling a story and revealing the values of Barack Obama, Michelle was able to instill trust in him through the American people.

There are a number of critics stating that the speech was too perfect, creating a Gandhi-like image, or simply all lies and spin to fool the American people. But it's clear from the video and from the praise of the speech that Michelle's story resonated with people. She told a story, and people not only listened, they connected. I believe her speech is a good example of what our readings were all about.

Social Media - Saving Lives and Building Capital

One of the things that really caught me with the YouTube videos we watched for this week was the focus on the social media community. One of the portions of the "An anthropological introduction to YouTube" has a man talking about how Youtube helped him get through his grief over losing his son. In Harry, A History, a book on the Harry Potter phenomenon, author Melissa Anelli discusses the trial she faced during the tragedy of 9/11. The first tower has been hit and Melissa doesn't know if her sister made it out of the building. In her anxiety, she turns to the Harry Potter community she has become a part of and explains her worry with them. She is flooded with messages of well wishes and she feels connected and comforted by them. The community helped pull her through the difficult time.

I think the power of social media communities is important to realize. People connect and they stay connected. They rely on each other and support each other in countless ways, emotionally as well as intellectually. And I think that should mean a lot to marketers. Online communities can be solid and unwavering, which makes them ideal as target audiences.

Gillin mentions finding a social network site with a Nobel laureate group at 54,000 members to which to market to. And I think the following video, which captures "A Day in the Life of Social Media" is also trying to highlight the many marketing opportunities based on the large number of participants in social media.

But outside of using social media for marketing, Dr. Howard points out several other uses in his book for social media, from improving creativity and decision-making processes to reducing training and support costs to flattening hierarchies and improving retention and loyalty. An example he uses is the speed at which an incorrect Wikipedia entry is fixed by the community. Social media is clearly a valuable tool for companies, if only companies would realize how to use it.

I thought the above video was interesting in pointing out the power of social media. It's clearly a vast resource, to which Gillin provides numerous ways to search though. But, the problem with this video and Gillin, I think, is that they mostly focus on marketing potential. What I believe Dr. Howard and myself are trying to point out is it can be used for much more than that. It can also be multifaceted support tool.