I am so, like…
… popular right now. It’s amazing. I’ve only been writing this blog for a week and yesterday I had 560 hits, from 3 continents. Yep. Who am I fooling? It’s a lie. Apologies. (Gran, you’re still alone).
Liking, or what psychologists call ‘social proof’ is a powerful beast and living in the Facebook age where we advertise our preferences on a daily basis, it’s more powerful than ever; given the context, reading this would almost certainly be more likeable if it came pre-approved.
It might however be a damning reflection of our habits if Zuckerberg’s camp find popularity in their trial and roll the ‘Highlight’ feature out across the platform; monetizing the feature – pay to put yours at the top.
Of course the Amazon/itunes crowd have been leveraging reputation capital to orientate the purchase decisions of customers for years – and other retailers such as C&A in Brazil (getting over the weirdness of C&A in Brazil) have recently used Facebook’s existing structure to highlight the popularity of garments, with real-time likes being uploaded to digital clothes hangers.
We infer prior knowledge through the behaviour of others. As Dan Zarrella points out in his, ‘Heirarchy of Contagiousness’, when faced with two restaurants, one with a line of customers, the other without – we’d be more likely to opt for the former, assuming that those waiting know something we don’t; what economists call an ‘information cascade’ might all be built on hot air though – the less busy eatery might be just as good.
So is there a downside to the unconscious, natural tendency to herd with others who share a love of the same, a tendency towards ‘homiphily’?
It could be that we are unaware of having our choices diminished or even manipulated by the prevalence of a ‘like’ culture – but having said that, our age is increasingly ransacked with choice (more on this another time) and we’ve always been manipulated in some way by mass media.
It is more that there is now an excess of curators – micro moguls – who have a reach beyond friends; they have an audience (this easily being the average Facebook user with 130 friends, according to Zarrella).
So this is good news for brands isn’t it? It all serves positively for brand-tribes. Well, we shouldn’t infer too much from online approval – a recent Social Bakers report found a lack of correlation between likes and consumer engagement; automotive had fewer, but more engaged fans whilst the chart inverts for FMCG.
But surely, you can have the best liked brand or most engaged fans in the market, and if it’s not converting to sales, what’s the point? Well according to event ticketing company, Eventbrite, who have been doing the math – the UK generates the highest figures, where a Facebook like adds £2.58 (approx $3.91) in gross ticket sales (although they don’t specify exactly over what duration).
This all sounds great until you read social media research figures from Syncapse where the numbers swing at a more random annualised, ‘$270.77 in the best case or go down to $0 in the worst’… With so many factors at play between consumer and brand, it’s impossible to accurately predict ROI.
Pesky cash issues aside – and focusing on long-term loyalty (we must all recognise likes can be somewhat frivolous), for the brave, edgy and down-right disruptive there is a playful angle to be had – it may be that a ‘dislike’ feature would be well attuned to brand personality. Library Thing’s ‘Unsuggester’ is a fun way to find something you had no clue you wanted to read.
And for those say, in the dating game, providers could offer an alternative to the ‘viewers of this profile also viewed…’ section. Less soulmates, more soul-hates. After all, as psychologist Oliver Burkeman notes, ‘if happiness research has taught us anything, it’s that we’re terrible at predicting what will bring us pleasure’.
Variety is the spice of life – and for certain brands where the voyage of discovery is all important, that’s got to be something to like.
Source: http://sidewalk-anthropologist.tumblr.com/post/26329371063/i-am-so-like
