Social Networking behaviours:
What behaviours are people exhibiting in social networks and how can we utilise them to produce innovative work…?
Basic level:
Creating an identity- all of the networks allow users to make an identity, whether via aviators, skins, music selection or simply by updating moods. Tools that build on this aspect of social networks are extremely popular as who we appear as on our page is extremely important as it is an online expression of our offline personality.
Making friends/connections – The main reason most people use networks once they are set up are to connect with people. Find old friends, make new friends or simply keep in touch with current friends. Without connecting with other people there would be little use for social networks.
Communicating – Just as we do in real time, we all love to chat to other people, whether for idol gossip, sharing views and opinions or gather information. Social networks have allowed people to communicate on every level possible. The strongest social networking applications allow people to communicate their opinions and connect with each other.
A wide range of leisure activities; music, television, debates and marketing – Content is vital to social networks, both for the individual and the group aspect of networks. People want to be entertained online. The key to content is to keeping it relevant to the network, the audience and the mindset they are in. Content that works well in Bebo will not necessarily work well in Facebook.
Searching – Social networks have become a dumping ground of information and users are using them to find out anything and everything. Health, political, celebrity, product, people, holiday, events, music and much much more information is all stored away in social networking pages and applications and are used like hotcakes.
Procrastination – We all do it and social networks have become a great way to kill time! And any of the above points can be optimised via procrastination. They key is providing enough engagement to be entertainment to people when they are bored.
Higher level behaviours – Potential for a much deeper level of engagement
Creativity –Whether playing with their own identity, playing with applications, voicing their opinions or displaying their own work on their networks, social networks are a great place for people to be creative. This ability to be creative is a very powerful tool as it fosters the user’s imagination and provides a deeper level of engagement.
Playing with one’s identity – Social networks allow users to become who they want to be and express a different, less inhibited side of their personality. Characters like Chris Crocker show how people can explode their personality to a whole new level through social media. All users do this on some level as so is a really emotive way to engage them.
A tool to build confidence – You may not think it but we all get something from using social networks. Such applications as “poke” allow us to flirt, adding new friends allows us to feel more popular and getting and receiving messages shows us that people want to talk to us. All of which build on our self-confidence.
Self-expression/promotion – The most confident social network users use social networks to promote themselves or their services. You only have to look around Myspace to see how many young artists there are shouting about how great they are and making us pay attention to what they have to offer.
Summary: Creating the best work
All of the above points highlight how intricate social networks are and should diminish the idea that all people use social networks for is to communicate with other people. Although communicating is at the heart of every thing we do on social networks there are vast arrays of behaviours that stem from it, each of which are there for us as marketers to tap into.
As marketers we should always create tools/idea that centre around the user’s natural behaviour to communicate but depending on the audience and the brand, tailor our communications to harness the users secondary (deeper) behaviours.
The most successful communications tools are those that think outside of the box! Tapping into higher-level behaviours that ultimately give the users something more than basic engagement.
For example – The O2 Facebook group tapped into 3 of the above points:
1) Communicating – at the heart of the page users had to communicate with each other and the page to express their personal views.
2) Expressing an identity – it allowed users to express who they are and what they stood for. An individual’s university choice says an awful lot about them and so allowing them students to talk about this was a very strong emotive hook.
3) Emotional benefits – The page ultimately, by use of the above two points, created a very strong emotional reason to interact with the page. Not only did the page provide a great way to procrastinate at university but it gave back to the audience. Hence the deeper level of engagement.
What behaviours are people exhibiting in social networks and how can we utilise them to produce innovative work…?
Basic level:
Creating an identity- all of the networks allow users to make an identity, whether via aviators, skins, music selection or simply by updating moods. Tools that build on this aspect of social networks are extremely popular as who we appear as on our page is extremely important as it is an online expression of our offline personality.
Making friends/connections – The main reason most people use networks once they are set up are to connect with people. Find old friends, make new friends or simply keep in touch with current friends. Without connecting with other people there would be little use for social networks.
Communicating – Just as we do in real time, we all love to chat to other people, whether for idol gossip, sharing views and opinions or gather information. Social networks have allowed people to communicate on every level possible. The strongest social networking applications allow people to communicate their opinions and connect with each other.
A wide range of leisure activities; music, television, debates and marketing – Content is vital to social networks, both for the individual and the group aspect of networks. People want to be entertained online. The key to content is to keeping it relevant to the network, the audience and the mindset they are in. Content that works well in Bebo will not necessarily work well in Facebook.
Searching – Social networks have become a dumping ground of information and users are using them to find out anything and everything. Health, political, celebrity, product, people, holiday, events, music and much much more information is all stored away in social networking pages and applications and are used like hotcakes.
Procrastination – We all do it and social networks have become a great way to kill time! And any of the above points can be optimised via procrastination. They key is providing enough engagement to be entertainment to people when they are bored.
Higher level behaviours – Potential for a much deeper level of engagement
Creativity –Whether playing with their own identity, playing with applications, voicing their opinions or displaying their own work on their networks, social networks are a great place for people to be creative. This ability to be creative is a very powerful tool as it fosters the user’s imagination and provides a deeper level of engagement.
Playing with one’s identity – Social networks allow users to become who they want to be and express a different, less inhibited side of their personality. Characters like Chris Crocker show how people can explode their personality to a whole new level through social media. All users do this on some level as so is a really emotive way to engage them.
A tool to build confidence – You may not think it but we all get something from using social networks. Such applications as “poke” allow us to flirt, adding new friends allows us to feel more popular and getting and receiving messages shows us that people want to talk to us. All of which build on our self-confidence.
Self-expression/promotion – The most confident social network users use social networks to promote themselves or their services. You only have to look around Myspace to see how many young artists there are shouting about how great they are and making us pay attention to what they have to offer.
Summary: Creating the best work
All of the above points highlight how intricate social networks are and should diminish the idea that all people use social networks for is to communicate with other people. Although communicating is at the heart of every thing we do on social networks there are vast arrays of behaviours that stem from it, each of which are there for us as marketers to tap into.
As marketers we should always create tools/idea that centre around the user’s natural behaviour to communicate but depending on the audience and the brand, tailor our communications to harness the users secondary (deeper) behaviours.
The most successful communications tools are those that think outside of the box! Tapping into higher-level behaviours that ultimately give the users something more than basic engagement.
For example – The O2 Facebook group tapped into 3 of the above points:
1) Communicating – at the heart of the page users had to communicate with each other and the page to express their personal views.
2) Expressing an identity – it allowed users to express who they are and what they stood for. An individual’s university choice says an awful lot about them and so allowing them students to talk about this was a very strong emotive hook.
3) Emotional benefits – The page ultimately, by use of the above two points, created a very strong emotional reason to interact with the page. Not only did the page provide a great way to procrastinate at university but it gave back to the audience. Hence the deeper level of engagement.
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