Chapter 3
The Importance of Relationships
Treasure your relationships, not your possessions.
—Anthony J. D’Angelo
Why do we form relationships in the first place? Are they part of the very way we are wired?
The simple answer to both questions is, “Yes.”
Forming relationships is at the very core of what makes us human. It is tied to the great psychological morass that we call our psyche.
Over the past few hundred years, psychological inquiry has shown that we form relationships for two reasons. The first is to receive something we want, something that fulfills our basic psychological needs (i.e., to be loved, wanted, etc.). The second reason we form relationships is because we have something to give.
Moreover, that simple explanation conveniently explains why some people like (or need) deep relationships with just a few people, while some are happier maintaining shallow relationships with lots of people. It all depends on how we are wired, how much we want or need, and how much we have to give and value giving.
The Limitations of Relationships
Great or small, we have limits to the number of relationships that we can maintain. Although there are a lot of other practical reasons (such as we cannot have our entire day consumed with tending and forging relationships), apparently our brains are only wired to handle a finite number of relationships. According to Robin Dunbar, that number is approximately 150.1 His definition of this number was based on years of research watching chimpanzees, who actually behave quite similarly to humans (without all the public personal grooming . . . that the monkeys do, not the humans).
We argue, however, that there are levels of relationships not anticipated by Dunbar, primarily as they relate to how people engage with organizations.a We have the ability to have both cursory and intimate relationships, especially in the digital world. Understanding relationships, and their limitations, necessitates recognizing the different levels a relationship can traverse. We’ve come up with a few, and a graphical way of representing them, embodied in the digital relationship pyramid illustrated in Figure 3.1.
- Aware: At this level of relationship, the two people know each other, but there is no extra thought that goes into it. I know your name, you know mine. You may or may not remember meeting me at that company cocktail party. This does not really count against Dunbar’s Number.
- Acquainted: At this level of the relationship, we have probably had at least one conversation. Maybe it was at that cocktail party or at the gym. However, if someone mentions my name to you, you will remember my face and probably one of the conversations we have had. Otherwise, you are not thinking of me.
- Friendly: At this level of relationship, we know each other. We may have even swapped a personal story or two. And lunch? Yeah, that is a possibility but maybe in a group. If you get desperate (and three other people have turned you down for lunch), you’ll give me a call, maybe not remembering the funny story I told you last week but at least you recall the feeling it evoked.
- Confidante: We are good friends now. In fact, we think of each other over other relationships (or on par with similar relationships). When it comes to weekends, we might even get together (or get our families together), and we definitely have a beer or two after work occasionally.
- Intimate: We are BFFs. We play softball together. Our families vacation together. When my wife is upset, I am crashing on your couch. And I can fondly remember a gaggle of stories about our times together. Hey, when we hit the bars, I am your wingman.
Although we explain later in the book that people have different relationship needs from an organization at any given time within their buyer’s journey, the ultimate job of any organization is to find those people within their relationship network that have the opportunity to become BFFs. Every organization wants a few of those. They are the brand advocates, the influencers, and those who will be willing to duke it out with friends and family at a holiday gathering over why they are using a competitor’s product over yours.
Understanding the levels through which relationships progress is only half the puzzle, though. In order to translate our knowledge of and experience with real-world relationships to the digital world, we have to grasp the components of a relationship—the parts that make up the whole.
The Components of a Real-World Relationship
To make the most of relationships in the digital world, we need to understand the essential components. Whether founded in hate, love, or something in between, every relationship we have (in whatever level of the pyramid) shares some general components:
- Emotional connection: At the foundation of any relationship is some sort of emotional connection. Love. Hate. Anger. Happiness. A relationship does not happen if there is no emotion. Without emotion, we cannot progress beyond awareness, because, frankly, how can you have a relationship based on “who cares”?
- Informational connection: In addition to sharing some emotional connection, people have to share information. It is very hard to have a relationship if there is no information passing between the two people (even if it’s rumor and gossip or a misrepresented story about us; sometimes it’s not the information we share explicitly).
- Understanding: Once a connection has been made, people come to an understanding. They recognize they share something (both emotional and intellectual).
- Trust: Finally, understanding progresses into trust wherein each participant in the relationship accepts that what the other is sharing is genuine. The relationship is true, and it is authentic.
Which raises the question, “Do the types of relationships or the relationship components differ between the real world and the digital world?”
We believe that they do not.
Relationship Killers: Geography, Time, and Attention
Even the best relationships are beset by struggles. In both real and digital worlds, relationships can face serious challenges.
In the real world, relationships face two primary challenges—time and geography.
Let’s pretend for a moment that the digital world does not yet exist. Roll back the calendar to 1940 for a moment. People communicate primarily through face-to-face, phone, and this funny thing called a handwritten letter. Each of these methods requires synchronization between people. The receiver has to be near the phone when it rings, or has to walk to the mailbox to retrieve the letter. As such, a significant amount of time passes between exchanges, making it challenging to remain connected emotionally and intellectually with any urgency.
Geography further complicates relationships. In this age before the Internet, it is nearly impossible to have relationships outside of immediate geographic barriers. Sure, you can call people or write them letters, but how would you meet them in the first place? Throw a bottle with a message inside into the ocean? And we all remember the expression “out of sight, out of mind.” Beyond close family, geography adds a level of complication that can undermine most relationships and prevent others from even forming.
Geography coupled with time is not the only proverbial relationship killer.
There is a third complication. Attention.
Geography and time have no dominion over how we form relationships when we are in physical proximity, but our natural inability to divide our attention certainly does. Imagine trying to engage with two friends simultaneously at a party, each trying to carry on a different conversation. You turn from one to the other, attempting bravely to engage each in lively dialogue. Then another friend and another surround you, all attempting to carry on different conversations. At some point, you run for the cocktail bar with your brain on fire. We simply are not wired to carry on that level of relationship multitasking for very long.
This brings us back to Dunbar’s Number. Imagine the difficulty of maintaining even 150 relationships if they were spread out over time and distance. It is no wonder that Dunbar studied relationships within primate groups. Relationships outside a specific group are simply too difficult to maintain with any sense of permanence. In this sense, relationships in the physical world are vertical—fewer, deeper, and most often within specific groups (i.e., work, community, sports, cultures, etc.).
Relationships in the Digital World
Returning to the present, the digital world is not only here, it is radically changing how we form and engage within relationships in four significant ways:
- Breaking down barriers (like time and geography) to form relationships
- Enabling permanence
- Empowering us to connect horizontally
- Personification
Breaking Down Barriers
The first thing that digital changes is the barrier to forming relationships. Forget geography. The Internet is everywhere. Digital unites us, as a species, regardless of location. Furthermore, geography is not the only thing that digital changes with respect to how we form relationships. It also knocks down any constraints that time once placed on us. We can connect with people when we want to (asynchronously through email or chat rooms) or immediately (via instant messaging, text messaging, mobile phones, and more). There are no barriers to us carrying on 3, 5, or 15 different conversations at the same time (as anyone with teenagers has observed first-hand).
Enabling Permanence
One of the biggest issues of relationships in the physical world is permanence. If we are not in constant communication or interaction with others, we tend to push them aside mentally. Think about that example we provided for face-to-face communication—all those people at the party with their different conversations. Combining that concept with Dunbar’s Number, we begin to understand why we push our focus on particular relationships into the background. We can really only concentrate on a few at any given time. The others are moved to the periphery and, ultimately, pushed out all together so that we can concentrate on those relationships that provide us the most value (and enable us to give the most value back).
Digital provides us the capability to keep multiple conversations going at the same time. It provides a sense of permanence to all of our relationships even when our brain has pushed them into the background. Thanks to sites like Facebook, with just a few clicks we can know quite a bit about someone, almost as if we were lifelong friends. The access to vast amounts of information about people and their activities and interests enables us to feel close to them even when we cannot communicate with them directly.b
Empowering Us to Connect Horizontally
In the physical world, as we described, relationships are usually vertical. Whether they are between people at work, or at a community location like a church, within a neighborhood, or even within a culture (especially when that culture is a transplant), we tend to keep our relationships with those people who we most often interact with physically.
But the digital world provides us a means to have many relationships with many people from all walks of life. Those relationships may start in bulletin boards or chat rooms, on blogs, or through social media. Digital provides us the means to have relationships with people who are not involved in the areas of our life where we might spend most of our day. These relationships—outside of the places and activities we frequent—can be considered horizontal.
Personification
Perhaps the most exciting change that digital provides us is personification. Up until brands began interacting with the public via social media, it was nearly impossible to have a conversation with Ford. Yes, we could call Ford Motor Company, or write them a letter, but we would likely engage a receptionist or mailroom clerk.
In the digital world, we can actually have a conversation with Ford through social media and other digital channels. Despite knowing the interaction is digital, and likely with a lower level employee in the social marketing department, we attribute the personality and behavior of the person with whom we are having the conversation, to the iconic Ford brand itself. What’s more, according to recent research, this is the way that consumers really want to engage with brands. In fact, according to Business2Community, 80 percent of consumers prefer to engage with brands through social media.2 Why is that? Simple. Because it’s all about relationships. And don’t believe for a minute that there isn’t a legion of smart people and university researchers trying to figure out why.3
Digital is evolving the way we form and build relationships, and not just by removing obstacles and enabling us to have more relationships (with more people and with more things). Digital expands our horizons. It compresses the world into a point of relationship singularity. It also changes the impact and value of our relationships.
Helpful Hints
There are a few things you can do to help maximize the value of your relationships:
- Map your relationships. You probably have some customers or prospects that engage with you more often than others. Try to map them into the relationship pyramid. How do they feel about you? If you have enough of these customers, it might be worth inviting them into a survey.
- Figure out the personality elements of your brand. Are you rugged when your audience expects you to be soft? The language that you use to communicate with people has to match how they perceive and personify your brand. Stanford’s Professor of Marketing Jennifer L. Aaker suggests that brands have five dimensions of personality—sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication, and ruggedness—each one with particular traits as evidenced in Figure 3.2.4
Understanding your brand’s personality and traits is the first step in achieving compatibility (that is, finding those audience members who will most resonate and connect with you), and compatibility can be a great catalyst for moving people up the relationship pyramid.
- Do not get swooned by horizontal. Many organizations base their digital success on simple indicators—how many “likes” they have or how many “followers” they get each month. Those are indicators of horizontal success. But organizations can get blinded by them and fail to deeply engage with the people in those networks.
- Give your brand a face. Many organizations, rightly so, brand their social and digital activities with their logos. Unfortunately, that does little to help “humanize” the organization. You need to give a face to your digital engagement. As we discuss in Chapters 13 and 14, this can add authenticity and credibility to your efforts (just ask Dell).
Notes
1. Robin Dunbar, How Many Friends Does One Person Need?: Dunbar’s Number and Other Evolutionary Quirks (London: Faber and Faber, 2010).
2. Kevin Jorgensen, “Facebook Marketing Statistics You Need to Know,” September 24, 2012, www.business2community.com/facebook/facebook-marketing-statistics-you-need-to-know-0289953.
3. You can read a very interesting paper that sums up a lot of the current research on brand personification in this Slideshare presentation. Galgano, Keely. “Brand Personification in the Digital Age: How Has the Evolution of Social Media Impacted Consumer-Brand Relationships?” www.slideshare.net/keels223/independent-study-final-draft.
4. Jennifer L. Aaker, “Dimensions of Brand Personality,” Journal of Marketing Research XXXIV (August 1997): 347–356, http://faculty-gsb.stanford.edu/aaker/PDF/Dimensions_of_Brand_Personality.pdf. You can also read other papers by Professor Aaker at http://faculty-gsb.stanford.edu/aaker/pages/research.html.
aAnother interesting aspect of how digital changes the way we form relationships—we personify organizations because they operate like people when they have social accounts.
bAlso consider how the smartphone has evolved. Today, all major smartphone operating systems include a “notification center.” When this feature is turned on (and it is by default), our phones alert us of a Facebook reply, text, LinkedIn message, and so on, so that we can engage quickly and immediately. It’s like a “hey, someone wants your attention” notification.