Listen closely to what we're about to say: 90 percent of word-of-mouth interactions happen off-line. Yes, you read that right. Nine. Zero. Percent. The good folks at the Keller Fay Group have done the homework, and it's no joke.
Look, social media is great. The Internet allows ideas to travel at the speed of light, and it connects us to both information and other like-minded people. But as great as all the Twitters and Facebooks and MySpaces and blogs and message boards and digital doodads are, they will never, ever replace the power of shaking someone's hand, looking them in the eye, getting kindred spirits in the room (or better yet, at your brand's Mecca), and laughing together, getting a drink, sitting at the dinner table—whatever. So many companies are getting caught up in the tactics of social media and word-of-mouth marketing; they jump right in and quickly get bogged down in the technical details. But we need to engage people first. After you talk with them and observe how they communicate and connect, the tools and tactics will be as plain as the nose on your face. No guessing. No need for redos. Nothing except forward momentum.
We've quoted Justine Foo—a PhD holder in complex systems and the brain sciences—several times in this book so far, but now we're going to unleash her. Justine has an amazing combination of extreme intellect and approachability and is more than likely one of the few neuroscientists actually involved in branding and igniting movements. She is part of the extended tribe at Brains on Fire and works with us on a regular basis. So what does she think about the Web 2.0 revolution?
I've never been comfortable with social media. I think it's an oxymoron. What fundamentally makes us human? The big answer to that question is the social brain; and if you look at studies of what makes our brains different from animal brains, the biggest difference is in the front—the social part of the brain.
Justine leans forward in her chair and continues with great enthusiasm and a whirlwind of hand gestures:
So what do we know about how the social brain works, and what [it] fundamentally [means] to have social cognition? Well, first and foremost ... it's [a capacity] called the theory of mind—the ability to infer something about your motivations. It's my ability to put myself in your shoes and say, what was she thinking? What is she motivated about? That is at the heart of all social behavior; our [capability] to infer what somebody else is trying to do. When we talk about wanting to connect with kindred spirits, in some ways we are wired to connect with people we understand.
We asked Justine to clarify her point.
We also use the theory of mind for [social behaviors like] mutual collaboration and cooperation. Recent brain studies show that mutual cooperation actually activates "pleasure centers"—for lack of a better word—in the brain. It's very rewarding to engage in cooperation and cooperative group behaviors. And from an evolutionary point of view, [you can certainly see] why that might be the case. The brain's not ten years old. It didn't evolve with the online world. It's three and a half million years old; it evolved at a time when [humans functioned] tribally and needed some kind of cohesive bond as a way to confer survival advantage.
So as a result of that, you have to ask yourselves—now moving to the online/off-line question—what kinds of information do we use to infer a person's motivations, or [figure out] whether he or she might be a kindred spirit? ... Most of that information is off-line information. It's nonverbal, intonation, or a look on a face. There is an area of the brain that some people argue is specialized for faces. Some people say, actually, it's not a face specifically; it's just an object that has a certain degree of complexity. But I think they're both probably right—because a face is such a salient symbol in the history of humanity that there appears to be a group of cells that we know respond more to faces.
And then she hits us with it: "So what do you lose when you limit something to an online social media campaign? Think about it. Can you really build community or ignite a movement when it only exists online without real people to people interactions? Don't even try."
A newer movement that we're igniting as we write this book is for Colonial Williamsburg, the birthplace of the United States of America. While gathering insight for the movement's foundation, we heard this great nugget (and reminder) from Director of Brand Strategy and Marketing Communications Sally McConnell: "The American Revolution was ignited by word of mouth; and it wasn't on the Internet. It was people riding up and down the East coast. [That] was their "social media.' America's Storytown—this movement—will become a part of the new history."
Are you currently focusing all of your efforts on your online strategy? We get it; it's important. But we can't stress enough that your online has to drive your off-line, and your off-line has to drive your online. You want online to be powerful? Then use it as a tool that enables face-to-face. Remember, 90 percent of word of mouth happens off-line.
You'll certainly have bragging rights if you have 100,000 followers or friends or fans, but if it doesn't drive off-line, then what is it really good for? Integration is the key, and if you can't see the difference between the two, then you're blind. Which group do you think has the more powerful stories? Which group do you think has stronger emotional connections? It's one thing to sit at a desk and type and engage in a kind of passive participation. But to get up from behind the computer screen, walk out of your house, and become a part of something—to literally participate shoulder-to-shoulder—that's powerful.
So, yes, online is important. But off-line—that's where the real stories are created. It's where they live and breathe, because that's where we live and breathe. Know it; believe it; live it.
In the April 2009 issue of Fast Company magazine, writer Ellen McGirt interviewed Chris Hughes, who is not only one of the founders of Facebook but also the whiz behind the digital dominance that ultimately put President Obama in office. She writes:
[Hughes] can't help but obsess about making technology less obsessive and simpler for everyone to use. He has started to Twitter, albeit reluctantly. He worries about how over-connected people are, even himself: "I keep an eye on it." He thinks that Web 2.0 underemphasizes the real world and that businesses trying to tap the technology often miss the main point. His philosophy, he says, is unchanged from his first involvement with Facebook: "It doesn't matter if it's a company or a campaign; you build around commonality. If it's real people and real communities, then it's valuable. Otherwise it's just playing around online."
Chris Hughes is our new best friend. The beauty is that he created something that allowed people to meet online but then forced them to make the real connections off-line, all around a specific common cause. We can't emphasize enough that the real meat of any relationship is technology-free. You don't need it when you're sitting across the table from someone or hosting a dinner party at your house.
We live in a time when everyone is trying to figure out what to do next, and some individuals out there are pushing technology so hard that companies are jumping in without a plan just to have a presence online and "be connected." But connected to what, exactly? Most of the time that definition of connection is very superficial. It's just another way to try to get people to talk about that brand, all the while pushing out messages that are laced with "me, me, me." There's a lot of playing around online these days. And a lot of connecting, albeit in a shallow way, with people you have nothing in common with. It's overconnection for the sake of numbers. Remember the old statistic that states that we're hit with more than 3,000 ad messages per day? We wonder what that number is now, considering that so many brands are in our social networks these days. And while some of them are doing it the right way, that percentage is still very small.
Remember: A common bond is a common bond. And if you can find it—and enter into those conversations is an unassuming, transparent way—your fans will organize and put you into the proverbial White House. Just don't forget who got you there in the first place.
As if we didn't talk about it enough already, here's even more proof from an article that comes from the British Science Association's British Festival of Science: Social networking sites don't deepen friendships. The gist is:
"Although the numbers of friends people have on these sites can be massive, the actual number of close friends is approximately the same in the face to face real world," said Will Reader at Sheffield Hallam University.
In other words, connecting online is great. But all you're doing is forming acquaintances. People you might recognize and say "hey" to. (Or even more realistically, those people you ask, "How are you?" and they reply, "Fine.") But they're not people with whom you have deep conversations.
Now let us apply this notion to the brands that are getting involved in online social networking sites. For a lot of them, it's a numbers game. "How many people can we get to be fans on our Facebook page or friends on our MySpace page or follow us on Twitter?" But these are mere acquaintances with the hope of maybe somehow driving transactions. There's no intent for a real, deep relationship.
The article goes on to state that "90% of contacts that the subjects regarded as close friends were people they had met face to face." That's nine-oh percent. Wow. So now you may say, "But we as a brand simply can't afford to just throw parties for our customers all the time all over the place." And to you, we respond, you don't have to. You, as a brand, can become an enabler. As we've stated before, you don't throw a party and hope people will show up. You go to where the party is happening—off-line. And not like a bull in a china shop, either. Go hat in hand and humbly.
Now we're not saying in any way that you shouldn't develop an online strategy. But what you should do is figure out how that online strategy can drive off-line conversations, off-line gatherings, and off-line relationships with employees and fans. Online fundamentally needs to support off-line, and the other way around. They work together. And any company that tells you to put all your eggs in the online basket will get you plenty of acquaintances but not many meaningful relationships.
Back to the article mentioned before:
"What social network sites can do is decrease the cost of maintaining and forming these social networks because we can post information to multiple people," [Reader] said.
But to develop a real friendship we need to see that the other person is trustworthy. "We invest time and effort in them in the hope that sometime they will help us out. It is a kind of reciprocal relationship," said Dr Reader. "What we need is to be absolutely sure that a person is really going to invest in us, is really going to be there for us when we need them ... . It's very easy to be deceptive on the internet."
There you go. A real relationship is about personal investment and sacrifice; this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. We ask you, the individual: How many companies that you have a relationship with will really be there for you when you need them? And to the brands, we ask: How many fans do you have that will do the same?
Okay, so we've made the case that online has to support off-line, and vice versa. But how do you do that? Great question. So we'll dig further into the case studies and show you.
When we first incited the Fiskateer movement, we didn't tell members that after they joined through the web site, they'd be getting an actual physical package in their mailbox a couple of weeks later. Nothing like a little surprise and delight to get people talking, right? So when those boxes showed up and those Fiskateers opened them, they saw several things. We mentioned the scissors with the custom-colored handles and the Fiskateer number engraved on the blade in the last chapter; while this was a gift, it also served a specific purpose.
Crafters often get together in groups at what they call "crops," which are basically modern-day quilting bees. They bring in all their tools in suitcases and rolling caddies and spread out their work and scrapbook for hours on end. They share tools and tips, so a lot of conversations take place about their passion. When a Fiskateer shows up at a crop, she unpacks her tools and starts using her special scissors. Inevitably, someone asks, "Hey, I've never seen scissors like that before. Where did you get those?" And a conversation about Fiskars and the Fiskateers ensues.
We also included coasters with messages on them in that welcome kit and for use at crops. Again, crafters put down coasters at these crops so their beverages don't leave wet rings that could damage their table, work, and papers. We simply turned a functional item they already used into an invitation; when Fiskateers met someone they thought would be a great addition to the movement, they could give the person a coaster and suggest checking out the web site. That's a great example of off-line driving online.
Also in the welcome kit is a booklet that contains several things: a page that welcomes newcomers to the movement, information on what you can expect from Fiskars (sneak peeks to new products, invitations to Fiskateer-only events, etc.), a page on what we expect from you (honest feedback, participation and engagement, your time), and, of course, the page that has the Fiskateer Oath.
One of the stories we like to tell is about our designers at Brains on Fire spending a lot of time creating the beautiful "Now What?" booklet. They were very proud of their handiwork, and when people began to receive their welcome kits in the mail, we watched with anticipation for their reactions. They loved the books—especially the content—but as crafters, they couldn't resist the urge to reuse the paper. So they began to tear apart the books and utilize them for some of their other projects. The designers were surprised, but it's something we could have never seen coming. Now we cocreate materials with the community in the first place. Lesson learned.
Today you can find www.Fiskatools.com, a site where members can download and personalize their own Fiskateer business cards and coasters, put blinkies on their web sites, and share the oath with others. It's online and off, working hand-in-hand.
Another off-line element that trumps online technology is face-to-face events. During the first year of the Fiskateers' existence, we identified 50 of the most active and passionate members, and Fiskars gave them an all-expense-paid trip to San Antonio, Texas. They dubbed themselves the "Nifty Fifty." This gathering was conceived for a few reasons, the main one being to strengthen the core of the Fiskateer movement by letting people bond in person. These relationships had been cultivated online for months, and now Fiskars had the chance to solidify these potentially lifelong friendships. And so that's what we did.
The weekend was full of Riverwalk tours and visits to the Alamo, but we also took the Nifty Fifty though the same curriculum we took the leads through. There was plenty of time for impromptu crops, and we brought in crafting celebrities to lead classes. We also taught these 50 crafters how to teach certified demonstrator classes and charged them with going back to their homes and certifying 20 others each, thereby making sure we had 1,000 people around the country who were certified to teach classes on how to use Fiskars tools. Why? Because before this event, companies like Wal-Mart would call Fiskars and say they needed someone to come out and teach a class in, say, Dallas. Fiskars would have to scramble to find someone and often couldn't find anyone to send. But now Fiskars can give a Wal-Mart store in a given location a list of names and contact information. Wal-Mart will pay that individual to come teach a class, Fiskars will get more exposure, Fiskateers will get to teach the hobby they love to others, and we will watch that store's sales increase for the following 10 days. That's what they call a win-win situation.
The next year, we had five "Fiska-frenzies" all over the country. This time, we opened the event to all Fiskateers and required that they pay their own travel, but Fiskars covered the costs of the day. Each location was themed, and Fiskateers drove hundreds of miles to attend. We ended up getting 12 percent of the community to engage off-line in this manner, and now Fiskateers initiate and organize their own events. We don't even hear about them until they send us the pictures or post the images and videos online. So yes, we had to prime the pump, but now it's self-sustaining and doesn't cost Fiskars a dime.
A common saying around our halls is "Don't throw a party and expect people to show up. Instead, go to where the party is happening." Would you really want to leave your party to go to someone else's you don't really know all that well, and then as soon as you hit the door, all they talk about is themselves? "Come on in. Welcome to my party. We'll be discussing the following topics: (1) How great I am. (2) All the cool things I do for you. (3) More ways to tell me how great I am."
Yeah, we wouldn't want to go to that party, either.
A great example of this theory in action is our work with teenagers and Rage against the Haze. Anyone who's worked with teenagers knows that it's hard work to try to organize an event and then hope against hope that people will actually show up for it. So why not go where the party is already taking place, somewhere teens are already gathered and open to conversations? Why not meet them on their turf, instead of hoping they will come to a strange place and open up to people they don't really know in this new environment? That just doesn't make any sense.
As you might guess, on any given autumn Friday night in South Carolina, entire towns empty out to go to local high school football games. That's really not much of an exaggeration. So obviously, since that's where the party was, that's where we went. Each Friday, our team of teens would show up at the biggest rivalry high school football game in the state. Sometimes they were in cities you've heard of before, like Charleston and Greenville, but many were in towns you've never heard of, like Star, Moncks Corner, and Camden. And while we did set up a booth, we'd also go out and talk to people. We'd get the cheerleaders involved, and they'd throw swag out into the crowd. We had a drumming challenge with the band. We'd interview the senior class president and football coaches. But there was no preaching about the dangers of tobacco. There were just conversations. Peer to peer. Using plain language and relating to one another.
High school student Quentin James played an integral role in the ignition of the Rage movement, and he went to work on the movement to elect President Obama as well. He was one of the team members who traveled around South Carolina to meet other teens where they were. He said, "With Rage, there was this constant stream of excitement every Friday night when we traveled to different games. Whether it was the high school events or the prom challenge, with every project we reinvented ourselves."
These are things that just don't happen online and provide a depth that can't be replicated when you're sitting behind a glass screen and a bunch of wires. For the Charleston Park Angels, it's getting your hands dirty in the parks while learning about the rich heritage of the plants. For Best Buy's Mi11, it's seeing local bands and meeting new musicians—not to mention making new musicians when you introduce them to a new guitar or drum set. For Colonial Williamsburg, it's immersing yourself in the place where America was born. You can't do that online, no matter how advanced the experience may be.
You will never hear us say that online engagement isn't important. Remember, the best strategy is to figure out how off-line and online can work together to become a powerful force to be reckoned with.
But ...
Don't create a Facebook fan page because your competitor is doing it. Don't jump on the Twitter bandwagon just because it's the flavor of the month. Remember that thing called Second Life? Yeah. Good one.
As our friend Chris, who is in experience design with a large financial services company that's geared toward the military and miliary families, reminds us, "It's not about technology; it's about people. I've worked in the tech field since the mid-nineties. The minute you fall in love with any given technology, it's outdated. It's like the philandering girlfriend. Technology is not going to stay faithful to you."
We love his phrasing because it rings so true, and it helps us look at things in a new light. Sure, you can trust in technology if you want and see where that gets you. But what you should trust in is that technology will always change. But the fundamental reasons people use it never do.
If you're sitting down to think about technology strategy first, you're going to have to go back to the drawing board in a few months. You'll constantly be playing catch-up. But if you invest in a strategy that engages your employees and customers first, then you'll be ahead of the game. It's the difference between blindly creating something for people, or intelligently and openly creating something with people. It's your choice.
So instead of going off into a corner and developing your iPhone application, why don't you ask your fans how they connect with one another first? Do your fans even have iPhones? Why not approach them and facilitate a conversation before you take action? We are so quick to do without answering the why of what we're doing.
A couple of years ago, when Twitter and Facebook were new on the scene, it was easy to become enamored with those shiny objects. However, instead of rushing into them, we actually had a novel idea: we asked the Fiskateer community what they thought about those social media tools. And they cringed. The overwhelming majority of them didn't go near either of those applications. Obviously, the time wasn't right. We couldn't build it and hope that they would come, when they were more than happy with the current Fiskateer site with all its bells and whistles (message boards, blog, galleries, chat rooms, etc.). So after listening to what the people wanted—or, in this case, didn't want—we put our efforts into making the current site even better.
Fast-forward three years. Twitter is really starting to take off, and we see more and more of the Fiskateer community dipping their toes in the Twitter water. So we engaged once again, but in a way that attempted to get people comfortable with the application, not force it on them. We noticed at the time that when a Fiskateer would find a great deal in a retail shop on Fiskars products, they would post what they called an "enabler alert" on the message boards to let others know of their find. Within minutes, we saw replies that said, "Oh, I'm going there at lunch!" and "Thanks for the tip." We knew right away that this was a valued service that ambassadors provided one another. They took pride in finding deals and sharing them with the community, and that got us thinking about how we could incorporate the two.
So we started a Twitter account called Fiskadeals. Keep in mind that even as we write this in early 2010, there still aren't a lot of Fiskateers tweeting. So instead of leaving it at that, we worked with a Web development company to devise an application that Fiskateers could put on their blogs as a direct Fiskadeals Twitter feed. When someone posted an enabler alert on the message board, it would get picked up by the Twitter feed and then blasted out to hundreds of blogs. Again, Fiskateers saw themselves as spreading valuable information. So while we did end up using Twitter, we had to do so in a way that could really benefit the community, instead of doing it just to do it.
The point is that you don't need to jump on the bandwagon when you integrate technology. We need to keep in mind that people are the killer app. Flesh and blood trump wire and glass every time. This is fundamental, and it will never change. So you can either roll with it or fight against it. One way will enlighten you, and the other will destroy you.