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Secrets of Social Media Revealed 50 years ago
Almost 50 years ago Ernest Dichter, the father of motivation research, did a large study of word of mouth persuasion that revealed secrets about how to use social media to build brands and businesses. The study was reported in a 1966 article in HBR.
A major Dichter finding that is still very relevant today was the identification of four motivations for a person to communicate about brands. The first (about 33% of the cases) motivation is product-involvement. The experience is so novel and pleasurable that it must be shared. The second (about 24%) is self-involvement. Sharing knowledge or opinions is a way to gain attention, show connoisseurship, feel like a pioneer, have inside information, seek confirmation of a person’s own judgment or assert superiority. The third (around 20%) is other-involvement. The speaker wants to reach out and help to express neighborliness, caring and friendship. The fourth (around 20%) is message-involvement. The message is so humorous or informative that it deserves sharing.
Looking at the social media role in brand building, I suspect that these same four motivations explain why some brands have been successful in using social media. It suggests that, in the absence of exceptionally entertaining communication, in order to employ social media effectively a brand needs to deliver extraordinary functional, self-expressive or social benefits. That is more likely to be the case when the brand is associated with an offering that is innovative and differentiated in a way that truly resonates with customers. It is unlikely to happen when the brand represents a “me, too” offering in an established category or subcategory. So it comes back to creating and leveraging innovation and differentiation.
A second relevant finding was that listeners are primarily concerned with two conditions. One is that the speaker be credible with experience and background that is convincing. A person does not need to be an expert, though that can help. People that have an intense interest in a subject resulting in relevant experience and access to relevant people and information qualify as well. Another is that listeners are skeptical of the speaker’s motivation. They want the speaker to be interested in the listener and his or her well-being without a bias. Is the speaker’s intention to sell a product or is it to help me? What is the speaker’s relationship to me? An implication is that a firm promoting its own brand needs to be aware of its status and emphasize facts instead of opinion, represent the right culture and values, and have a balanced perspective.
Another implication is that a firm should promote a dialogue because a listener will be more likely to accept judgments from someone with whom there is an interaction going on. With a dialogue, it is much easier to communicate expertise, interest in the subject matter and the right motivation because there is a chance to build up a relationship and use reassuring cues. In contrast, a one time, one way communication will have a harder time demonstrating credibility and motivation.
A third finding was that recommenders had on average a huge impact on purchase, running to 80% for some products. The classic and even earlier work of the sociologists Katz and Lazerfield reported in their book Personal Influence had already documented the impact of social influence has a two-step flow, but this study brought the ideas to the level of purchase decisions.
It is amazing that the nearly forgotten theory and practice of word-of-mouth communication and influence from more than five decades ago can be so relevant today.
Posted September 29, 2011 / Permalink
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building brands
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It is interesting that after 50 years same findings apply with our digital society. Thanks for posting!
Nowadays, the firm have to pay more attention to these "opinion leader". This may lead the market into a fair competition enviroment. It will make firm to re-consider of the quality and service, because the brand are exposed under a real public talkable and spread-able market. However, sometimes I m confused that if the situation will turn to "I pay you, you say something good for me". I have met the situation is some opinion leaders gourp now have become like "who spend more money, I speak for whom"? After paying attention to the social media these years, I think the good thing of social media is it is a net, it is never lean on one person or one group of person. Even these opinion leaders have confidential, have many fans or what. They are still one person, ten person. It is not that easy to distroy the reputation of the brand if it is a really good brand and is a real customer-comes-first brand.
Ernest Dichter. Now, there's a blast from the past. I read his work when I was in college.
Dichter's core premise that emotionally-based attributes were core to creating brand value is central to the work of account planners.
It's interesting to speculate on Dichter's four motivations and how they relate to the relatively recent phenomena of corporate social responsibility (CSR) as well as Porter's twist on CSR which he calls 'shared value.'
Mary Jo, I agree but would add if you are a grocery store brand, you don't talk about the product but something else--look at Red Bull.
Scarlett, the credibility of WofM may be at rist--one celebriety gets 10,000 dollars to tweet about a brand.
Ron, you are very right--Self-expressive benefits and altruism are keys to both CRS and Porter's new ideas (which I blogged about in HBR.org arguing that his ideas are not very easy to implement and a focued social program strategy is better).
David, Enjoyed your perspective.
The article brings to mind the old adage, 'everything old is new again'. The concept and effective use of word of mouth advertising still rings true as an effective way to create brand awareness and to influence potential purchase decisions. Thus, the use of various social media platforms such as Facebook Twitter, Blogs etc. simply expedite the speed and range of dissemination of the W.O.M. message.It should come as no surprise that the credibility of a known source carries more weight and influence in our decision making processes than when we are are making purchase decisions in absence of such influence. I also believe that the power of the W.O.M depends on the significance and 'cost' of the potential item to be purchased. The higher the purchase price or cost of investment may indicate the greater impact of the W.O.M. influence factor.
— Added by MaryJo Radosevich,MBA on September 30, 2011