Chapter 4

How We Connect in the Digital World

What tribes are, is a very simple concept that goes back 50 million years. It is about leading and connecting people and ideas. And it is something that people have wanted forever.

—Seth Godin

There are many ways to connect in the digital world. We can connect with each other through comment boxes on websites. We can connect through timelines in social media channels. We can connect with each other through instant messaging and chatting. Heck, we can even connect through both on-demand and live video.

But regardless of the channel through which we connect, the concept of the relationship network is radically compressed.

What Is a Relationship Network?

All of the relationships that we form create a giant network. Have you ever been amazed by how small the world seems when you realize that one of your friends knows one of your other friends (through no introduction by you)? This is the premise of a network. In certain kinds of computer network architectures (as defined by the father of the Ethernet, Bill Metcalf), all elements can be aware of, and connected with, each other. In a relationship network, they are not.

Figure 4.1 illustrates a typical relationship network of one person (as the “hub”). In this example, the people related to the hub (in the middle) may not be aware of each other, as is the case in the three branches on the left-hand side. But on the right hand side, the three branches are connected with each other through relationship shared by each other and not the hub. Unlike a typical computer network, this diagram exemplifies the complexity of understanding how people are related.

Figure 4.1 Connectivity Diagram

Is It Still Six Degrees?

Many of us have heard of the game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.”1 The idea is simple—to link any actor to Kevin Bacon through no more than six connections, in which two actors are connected if they have appeared in a performance together. Here is an example with Bela Lugosi (obscure, yes, but we love him):

• Bela Lugosi and Jaime Lee Curtis appeared in 100 Years of Horror.
• Jamie Lee Curtis and Kevin Bacon appeared in 8.

According to the game, this would give Bela Lugosi a Bacon number of 2 as illustrated in Figure 4.2.a

Figure 4.2 Go Ahead, Type in an Actor’s or Actress’s Name in Google, Followed by “Kevin Bacon Number” and You’ll Get Something Like This

What the game really represents is the “small world” phenomenon in social networking theory. We’re sure you’ve caught yourself saying, “Wow, what a small world this is,” when, as we mentioned in the beginning of this section, you came to realize that some of your friends know each other without you having done anything to introduce them. The concept of how we connect to each other, the degrees of separation between people in a social network, has been a focus of study for over 70 years!2

But what about in digital? Is it still safe to say that there are six degrees of separation between people? The answer is “Yes.” Digital does not change the distance of separation between people, as evidenced in a 2007 study by Jure Leskovec and Eric Horvitz involving instant messages. Leskovec and Horvitz examined a dataset of instant messages composed of 30 billion conversations among 240 million people. They found the average path length among Microsoft Messenger users to be six.3

What digital does is compress the “relationship network.” It is now much easier to become “friends of friends.” Think about it this way—have you ever looked at the list of friends on someone’s Facebook page? How simple would it be to click on one and become his or her friend? He or she could easily confirm a connection to you by seeing that you are a friend.

Can We Have More Relationships?

As we described earlier, Dunbar’s Number represents a cap on the number of relationships that we can have. As we pointed out, his number is focused on the physical world, in which our relationships are bound by geography, time, and our nature.

If digital compresses the relationship network, thereby increasing the ease by which we can form relationships, it would be safe to say that we can form far more than 150 or so relationships. And when you factor in personification—our ability to form relationships with things that are represented by people in digital channels—Dunbar’s Number is left at the curb.

Digital is enabling us to become relationship-forming machines, to give and take (two of the foundational components of any relationship) with more people and things, faster. The implications of that—how it changes our behavior in the way we form relationships—are the real magic of the digital world for organizations. Why? Because that magic represents concrete opportunities that any organization can leverage to form better digital relationships.

The Magic of the Network

Okay, let’s get over the fact that we used the word “magic.” There is really no magic here; well, definitely not any wand waving or pixie dust. But some psychological adaptation has occurred, enabled by technology, which has evolved the way we form relationships:

• Communication all the time, anytime
• Becoming the center of attention
• Our online selves

Communication All the Time, Anytime

The first bit of digital magic is about behavioral change. Remember how time is an issue with keeping relationships in the physical world? Digital never sleeps. Facebook never turns off its servers. Twitter never shuts down for a nap. And unless you physically turn it off, your mobile phone is always in “sleep” mode. In fact, most of our electronics do not turn off. We simply turn their screens off. But all the software on them, communicating with servers and services around the globe through the Internet, continues to happen 24/7/365.

And that is what we have become—an “always on, always connected” society. This has a profound impact on the way we engage with our relationships. It may happen synchronously (like a phone call) or asynchronously (like an e-mail or a letter), but it creates an expectation that our relationships are available at any time. We can leave messages for them, be surprised when they respond at 3:30 a.m., engage in conversations with multiple people in a single Facebook post, or have a multiperson text chat.

Our expectations are radically changing about what it means to be in a relationship. We are connected to them all the time. Can you imagine what would happen if someone wanted to have a relationship that was all about writing letters, where engagement took days, weeks, or even months instead of being instantly available? That would be very quickly out of sight, out of mind in today’s world, where digital has created the fundamental changes to our expectations for the availability of our relationships.

That is, until they begin to post those handwritten letters to your Facebook page.

Becoming the Center of Attention

What drives us to want to connect 24/7/365?

Of course, we can disconnect. We can turn off our phones and computers and live a sunup to sundown lifestyle. However, when we do connect again, we immediately jump back into our relationship network, into checking Facebook and Twitter, into texting and chatting. Why is that? Well, much like our penchant for video, we are wired to seek out newness. Like moths to a flame, we are drawn to novelty.

Before we explain the impact of novelty on relationships in a digital environment, we need to cover a little science about the brain. Stop yawning! Think how useful this information will be the next time you play Trivial Pursuit or Buzztime.

A long time ago (okay, maybe only 50 or 60 years), neuroscientists used to believe that our behavior and personality was largely determined by adolescence. Hence, the old phrase “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” The idea was that the brain was set in its ways. However, more recent research has uncovered some very interesting information about the brain and set those old neuroscience ideas on their head—habit, reward, and neuroplasticity.

Habits and Rewards

Through a lot of clinical research, scientists understand that our brains operate on habit and reward. As we do the same activities repeatedly, the pathways in our brains associated with those activities grow stronger, just like how working out a specific muscle group not only strengthens it, but also makes it larger. In terms of our brains, that “strengthening” is actually more connections between neurons. That’s right, scientists have actually discovered that the synaptic connections between neurons evolve throughout our entire lives, weakening and strengthening based on habit.4 You may be asking yourself (again, preparing for trivia domination), “What makes us continue a habit?” That is the reward component of the system. Scientists have also discovered that the brain rewards itself (with a neurotransmitter called dopamine, which makes us feel happy) as neural pathways strengthen. So, there is an actual reward for continually performing the habitual activity.b

Neuroplasticity

This concept of being able to rewire our brains based on habitually performing activities (and being rewarded for it) is called neuroplasticity. Although a newer concept in the land of neuroscience, researchers around the world are studying it quite extensively because of its implications—it means that our brains are malleable.5 We can change our behavior, and we can, up to a point, change our personalities. Through an intellectual process, we can direct ourselves to change our habits. It may cause intense discomfort (i.e., the lack of dopamine associated with the new habit), but we can force ourselves to do it. The best example we can give you to visualize this is dieting.

• Old habit: You are overweight (hey, do not take this personally, we are just making an example) and continue to eat badly despite being unhappy. Why? Because your brain is rewarding you with dopamine to continue the old habits.
• Breaking the habit: You make a conscious decision to change your ways. To eat healthy. To exercise. This is the intellectual process.
• Fighting the change: Your brain fights the change. Dopamine has been cut off. You hate the idea of exercising. You hate eating healthier foods. You feel guilty. You give in. You resist. It is a struggle. Your brain is trying to fight the change to the new habit. And when you slip back into old ways? Yup, dopamine city.
• New behavior, new reward: But if you stick to the new behavior long enough (and tell yourself enough times, which is part of the habit, that you feel better and are happier), you’ll soon be rewarded for it.

Forcing Change through Novelty

Okay, now let’s throw a monkey wrench into that whole concept of you being in charge of changing your behavior. That wrench is novelty. Our brains are actually wired to be attracted to newness. It wants to experience different things (which is why we struggle with the menu at the local diner between our “tried and true favorites” and the latest dish). And that desire for newness? Yup, you got it. It is a dopamine release as well. It is really all a matter of which will produce the most reward.

But the desire for novelty, which is also the reason that we channel surf, is what has helped us evolve. Sciences. Philosophy. Industrialization. All of these are a direct result of the human brain looking for the “new.”6 And the biggest dopamine reward connected to discovering something new? That “aha” moment when you connect things together.

If you have not surmised it yet, our brains are complicated. We are continually at war with ourselves to stay creatures of habit while being drawn to finding new things and experiencing the world around us.

Why Is All This Science Important?

Fair question. This is a business book, intended to help you maximize online relationships, right? Well, this science should help you understand why people form the relationships they do with your organization. They don’t do so willy-nilly. And they don’t change their feelings toward your brand because they want to. It’s all tied up in how you engage with them and the habits they form when they interact with you. In essence . . . you are in control. Well, as much control as we have over the gray spongy mass inside our skulls. But still, there is an opportunity for you to direct the habits that people form. Think about it this way—if all the reactions people have with you are positive, then they will get rewarded by their brains the more they react with you. That’s habit. Understanding how our brains reward us biologically in response to how we interact with our environment and each other is critical to providing great digital experiences, which is also important when evaluating the personality of your brand and determining compatibility.

Novelty in a World That’s Always Changing

Okay, not so fast.

Just because you understand a little about the brain, enough to influence your engagement strategy through your marketing efforts, let’s rock the boat a little and complicate matters.

One thing we can say about the digital world is that it is in a state of constant change. More content, such as articles, videos, and comments, is being added every second. Figure 4.3 provides some great examples of just how much data we are producing.

Figure 4.3 Digital Information Created Each Year, Globally

Sources: IDC, Radicati Group, Facebook, TR Research, Pew Internet.

What’s more, this isn’t something that’s happened over the course of a hundred years. According to Science Daily,7 a full 90 percent of the data we have today has been generated in the past two years.

The extremely fast, dynamic nature of the digital world complicates an organization’s ability to leverage those neuroscience principles. Why? Because it means that neuroplasticity (aka the change in our audience’s heads) is happening quickly. There’s something new every day. Something to grab our audience’s attention away from us, which punctuates the need to develop digital experiences that are not only memorable but emotionally engaging. You have to make it hurt for your audience to leave. If they focus their attention somewhere else, you want the dopamine cut-off to drive them back your way.

The Digital Universe Is All about You

Okay, now that we’re done with that detour into our brains, let’s further explore the ways in which a compressed network affects our ability to form relationships. The first way is communication “all the time, anytime.” The second way involves our position within the network.

How many times did you hear, as a kid, “No, the world does not revolve around you”?

But online we are surrounded by our connections, and our content. The synchronous/asynchronous nature of digital makes it feel like the world does revolve around us, or is waiting to revolve around us.

The result?

Digital gives us a false boost to our ego.

Our ability to form relationships with anyone, anywhere (even if the relationships are horizontal, shallow, and lightweight) has turned us, in some ways, into relationship stamp collectors. Sherry Turkle, in her book Alone Together, suggests just that—digital enables us to feel like we have more relationships, when, in fact, those relationships lack substance. Despite being “together” with more people, we are actually more “alone.”8

Our Online Selves

The third significant change wrought on the way we form relationships is the idea that we are really two people—our offline and online selves.

Everyone connected to the digital world has a “digital self.” Not a walking, talking, virtual version like Stephen King’s Lawnmower Man. Rather, your digital self is a representation of you. It’s all the information you have provided about yourself, and everything others might observe about you. As a Facebook user, you have probably liked a few things. Gotcha. And all the content you engaged with on other sites through your Facebook credentials? Yup. Add that to the catalog of everything you have ever searched for online. Whether you are aware of it or not, deep underneath the Internet is a layer of software functionality, enabled by connections between different services through authentication credentials and adservers, that creates a very detailed picture of you.

Your digital self.

Now, do not freak out. This is no different from the employees of the small hardware store. They know all about you too, although their “software functionality” is all in the gray matter in their heads. They remember the stories you have told them, the advice they have given you on fixing the sink. They know where you live because they deliver heating oil to your house. And yes, they hear all the rumors about your obsession with scrubbing the barbecue grill immaculately clean every time you use it. They know you bought those tennis shoes at The Barn (of course, everybody in town buys their tennis shoes at The Barn). They know your kid plays soccer, just made Life Scout, and likes orange soda (Ogilvie’s sells killer orange soda). They know a lot more about you than you realize. And no data privacy rules apply. You cannot force them to wipe their memories clean and forget you. In fact, if they didn’t remember you the next time you walk in the store, you’d be offended, just as Robert Scoble was offended that the Ritz-Carlton forgets him every time he leaves. Gathering, remembering, and using data about you helps them tailor and personalize your experience in their store. Of course, because they are human, store employees move on, retire, and do occasionally forget.

Consider again how much data we are producing every single day—pictures, videos, emails, search queries, clicks on websites, likes/dislikes on Facebook, Tweets, and responses to status updates. Here are a few stats to put it into perspective:c

• YouTube users upload 48 hours of new video every minute of the day.
• 571 new websites are created every minute of the day.
• Brands and organizations on Facebook receive 34,722 Likes every minute of the day.
• 100 terabytes of data is uploaded daily to Facebook.
• According to Twitter’s own research in early 2012, it sees roughly 175 million tweets every day, and has more than 465 million accounts.
• 30 billion pieces of content are shared on Facebook every month.

Your digital self is simply a representation of you. It tells someone a story about you that may otherwise take years of engagement to uncover. In no short order, digital technologies help lay you bare, providing an opportunity to predict what you may be willing to like or buy based on what you and your relationship network have liked or bought in the past.

Again, digital compresses how we connect.

Connecting the Dots

Okay, we have gone over a lot so far. We looked at relationships before digital, and how digital is reshaping our very minds and the way we form relationships now. Before we get into what all this means to an organization’s ability to tap into relationships in the digital world, let’s connect the dots so that we are all coloring the same picture:

• Digital is breaking down barriers and challenges in how we form and engage with relationships.
• Digital is giving us expectations that our relationships are always on.
• We are wired to seek new things because they give us a reward.
• The more we do things (for rewards), the more our brain strengthens around it (which means more rewards).
• The digital world is full of new things every second of every day, which keeps us checking Facebook and Twitter and our favorite blogs.
• As we spend more time online engaging through our relationships digitally, we are creating a “digital self.”
• Your “digital self” is a picture of you as a person that is growing at a phenomenal rate.

If organizations hope to leverage relationships in the digital world, they need to understand how people form relationships and engage through them.

The Relationship of Things

We mentioned before that one way the digital world changes how we form relationships is personification. Brands have jumped into the digital world as entities with their own blogs and Facebook pages and Twitter accounts. Brands and, even more so, things (like a fan page just for a product) are engaging directly with consumers.

People inherently know there is someone behind the brand controlling that experience. Still, psychologically, that doesn’t prevent us from associating one with the other, which has happened many times in the world of social media when whoever is representing the brand makes a terrible slip-up, like with Kraft and its Baker’s chocolate.9

What happened exactly? Well, it would seem that Kraft, the makers of Baker’s chocolate, a favorite of cooks everywhere, changed the amount of chocolate in their packages without changing the price. Mistakes happen. But when customers pointed out the drastically higher price per ounce, Kraft initially blamed the retailers. The situation soon escalated until it became clear to most consumers reading Tweets and Facebook posts that Kraft was trying to pull a fast one. Ghirardelli, one of Kraft’s biggest competitors for baking chocolate, took advantage and increased its market share.

This “relationship of things” allows us to feel “connected” to something that is much bigger than we are. Call it a shared experience. We are one of many “fans” of Baker’s chocolate. Ultimately, this allows us to expand our relationship network horizontally by some exponent. Think about it—through shared experience with a thing (in this case Baker’s chocolate) we can now start engaging with other Baker’s fanatics who might share these relationship elements:

• Emotional connection—anger over the brand
• Informational connection—a personal story with Baker’s chocolate
• Understanding—recognizing the shared experience (and that there might be more shared experiences)

Welcome to the Relationship Economy

What can you do in the digital world to give yourself a better chance of forging relationships with people? How can you translate what works in the real world to the digital world? Recognizing how fast that world is moving all the time—how can you convert those nine elements we outlined in Chapter 1 to digital activities? Given that it’s a 24/7/365 relationship that is constantly forming, morphing, evolving, creating, and engaging, building online relationships is like jumping on a bullet train from a horse running backward!

The Relationship Economy drives business operations in the digital world. Of course, not everyone wants the same kind of relationship (more on that shortly), but relationships grow from engagement. And engagement gives organizations the opportunity to, over time, convince people to buy their products, services, or join their causes.

Like any economy, though, there is a system of exchange. In the relationship economy:

• People spend attention. In a 24/7/365 world where everyone is trying to convince us to buy something, people are fickle and have to be careful where they spend their attention. There is a limit to our attention budget!
• Organizations “buy” attention. Organizations have to offer something in order to get attention. It might be an awesome interactive digital experience. It might be a game. It might be a book, a great blog post, or an incentive.
• Relationships equate to organizational value. What makes one organization more “successful” than another? Is it their product? Or their brand? Or is it the relationships they have developed with millions of people? We believe that it is ultimately the latter. You get people to pay attention to you with a great product and a brand message that resonates. But the actual value is derived from the number and depth of the relationships than an organization has garnered. Just ask Apple.

Unfortunately, most organizations do not recognize the power of relationships. They still practice old-school marketing techniques despite the prevalence of powerful technologies that can help personalize the digital experience for each person—one size fits all. In order to foster and ultimately capitalize on relationships in the digital world, organizations must understand that different people may want different things out of a relationship.

The Evolution of the “Buyer’s Journey”

Most B2B organizations out there have a sense of the buyer’s journey, how consumers make a decision. Figure 4.4 exemplifies a common buyer’s journey:

Figure 4.4 The Common Buyer’s Journey

Source: Limelight Networks.

• Discovery: This is the point when the consumer or buyer recognizes that they have a need. They might go out and learn about the challenges they will face in meeting that need as well as learn about organizations that might provide a solution for them.
• Consideration: During this part of the buyer’s journey, the buyer starts to explore and compare all the options. This is the step that is largely performed online now.
• Decision: Finally, the purchaser is ready to decide. This might involve more intimate engagement with the selected providers from the consideration phase.

However, like everything else, digital has transformed the buyer’s journey into something else . . . something more complicated (see Figure 4.5).

Figure 4.5 A New Buyer’s Journey

Source: Limelight Networks.

In this new process, only a start and an end—a need and a decision—are defined. Everything in between is scrambled. There is no linearity to the journey. The process bounces around in the digital world—first to Facebook to ask friends if anyone has experienced the same problems, then to YouTube to watch someone tackling the problem, then back to Facebook to share the video and have some more conversation, then to a search for reviews, prices, outlets, a purchase, maybe a return, then to Twitter to check out what people are saying about competitor products, and then to a commitment to be more thoughtful about making a decision because the return process was a pain in the butt.

You get the picture.

Not only is it no longer a linear process, it’s much longer than the traditional buyer’s journey and may even involve buying and returning products until a final decision is made (the Internet has made it very easy to do this).

Are There Multiple ZMOTs?

First, what is a ZMOT? It stands for the “Zero Moment of Truth.” According to Google, in their 2012 pioneering study about electronic-commerce, the ZMOT is that point when the consumer researches a product but is not in the traditional sales funnel or buying cycle. As Steve Toth puts it in his blog post “What is ZMOT and How Can It Help Your Business?” ZMOT is “all the research consumers do online before making their purchase. The internet has empowered people to know more about the product they’re going to buy, than the person selling it to them.”10 As the originator of the term, Google explains it as such in their ZMOT Handbook11:

At the Zero Moment of Truth, today’s shoppers bounce back and forth at their own speed in a multi-channel marketplace. They switch devices to suit their needs at any given moment. They search; go off to look at reviews, ratings, styles and prices; and then search again. They see ads on TV and in newspapers and online. They walk into local stores to look at products. They talk to friends, over the back fence and on social media. Then it’s back to ZMOT for more information.

ZMOT, then, is all the activities a consumer does in figuring out what product to buy before ever researching it specifically. It’s almost like consumers are answering the question, “How do I solve this problem?” rather than “What do I solve this problem with?” In the new buyer’s journey, there are multiple ZMOTs. In fact, there may even be ZMOTs after purchase if, for example, the consumer returns the product. The important thing to understand about ZMOT, and the new buyer’s journey, is that it’s no longer predictable. There’s no telling when a consumer will move from research into consideration and then drop back out of the “sales funnel” into research mode again. Consider this: according to Google,12 the average consumer needs a variety of information sources before making a decision. As Figure 4.6 illustrates, that need may be anywhere from 18.2 pieces of information (if a consumer is buying a car, for example) to 5.8 before deciding at which fast-food restaurant to eat. This information may be in the form of web research, a TV advertisement, a phone call, social media, or dozens of other channels (makes you realize how much we are surrounded by content).

Figure 4.6 The Need for Information

Source: Google (2011).

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Sellers and marketing agencies are going to hate this spaghetti model. We will probably take a lot of flak for defining it (even though it is reflective of ZMOT, which, according to Google, has been explored and/or adopted by over 200,000 marketers to date). It’s not a pleasant, business-school-friendly, four-quadrant diagram, and it’s not a nice, clean, funnel-shaped process that can be analyzed and optimized. But it is the new reality. Digital blows up marketing’s 4P model, melts it down, and dumps it in our collective lap. There is no price power, no place power, no product power, and no promotion power. And there is definitely no more sales funnel. As Brian Fetherstonhaugh, the head of OgilvyOne (Ogilvy’s new media practice), explains, “Now the sales funnel was actually invented in 1898, so it’s had a very good run, but this notion of the marketer or seller driving people through the selling funnel is just not relevant anymore. The empowered and informed consumer has got their own journey and your job as a salesperson is to meet them on their journey and propel them and work with them towards a final sale. It’s a very different beast.”13

The only power digital leaves to brands, stores, salespeople, marketing teams, and organizations is relationship power. But that, according to Ted Rubin, the author of Return on Relationship, is the biggest challenge for businesses today—forming relationships—because they fear the work involved in doing it correctly.

It’s the Buyer That’s Changed

The real impact of this changing buyer’s journey isn’t necessarily on sales and marketing. It’s much deeper than that. The change in the buyer’s journey signifies a fundamental shift in the relationship between organization and consumer.

According to Mike Volpe, CMO at Hubspot, “the buyer has all the power now. Most companies haven’t done enough to rethink their culture and how they’re organized and what’s important to them to embrace the way buyers are buying today.”14

The need to understand your audience, then, as explained by Tony Zambito, takes on a whole new meaning. We need to understand that the audiences we thought we knew are actually much different than they were even 10 years ago. Even though consumers have evolved, most organizations have done little to keep pace.

“It’s a bigger and more deeply seeded change than most companies are willing to admit. So what do they do? They do some small things at the surface to address the big changes that are happening,” says Mike. “They start doing social. Or they start a blog. But that’s not really addressing the fundamental change in the way the consumer buys.”

If organizations really want to engage with their audiences throughout the new buyer’s journey, they have to make changes within their DNA. They have to reimagine how they are organized, who’s responsible for what, and enable employees to engage with customers when it’s needed, not when their “job description” says they should.

“On the surface, it sounds like it shouldn’t be hard,” says Mike. “But in most companies, the person who should be doing the interaction is in a role where it’s not his responsibility. In many cases, the people who are charged with interacting with the customer are in marketing—not the person, not the expert, with whom the customer wants to speak.”

How can an organization keep up with, let alone identify, what their audience needs when the right people aren’t even connecting with the audience in the first place? As we will learn in Chapter 14, this can significantly undermine credibility.

Four Distinct Relationship Types

The evolution of the buyer’s journey (and the convolution of the decision-making process as a whole) calls into sharp relief something even more important—your audience will change their relationship needs throughout the process. Sometimes, they’ll just want information. Facts. Other times, they’ll want to engage with you or grill you about the product to get a sense of your credibility, authenticity, and helpfulness. Sometimes they want a warm handshake and friendly smile, and sometimes they just want a damn lightbulb.

Of course, this idea of different relationship needs is attractive. The Internet is littered with comparisons between offline and online relationships (with the latter being inferior, less personal, not as a deep). But perhaps digital just makes it easier to do what we really want to do—have a network of acquaintances that we can tap into when needed. Because, really, do you want a deep and intimate relationship with every person you meet? With every company you visit? I think we can all agree that the answer is “No.” Sometimes, you just may want a little bit of information. Other times, you may really want to get involved with a conversation about a topic that is near and dear to you. Recognizing this is critical in providing the kind of personalized experience that appeals to the “I’m the center of attention” mindset of people involved in the digital world (see Figure 4.7).

Figure 4.7 The Four Different Relationship Types

Source: Limelight.

• You don’t see me. For whatever reason, some people want a relationship that is invisible. You know I am here, and I know I am here, but I do not want anyone to acknowledge it. Men like these relationships a lot. It is the reason they never ask for directions. How does it translate to the digital world? By ensuring that you have provided all the details about how your company helps people, what it sells, how your product/service works, and so on. This enables these people to help themselves while internally singing your praises for being informative and helpful.
• Acknowledgment. Some people want a relationship that just says, “Hey, I see you there.” Maybe it is a head nod or a tip of the hat. In the digital world, this translates to liking their comments on Facebook or maybe even replying but never sending them a direct message. They do not want one-to-one interaction. They want to feel like they are part of the conversation but only actively participate on their terms. This person will probably click a lot on the links you post into social media.
• Attention hound. You know these people. In grade school, they always had their hands up. They always had the loudest voices in group discussions. But these people are also the talkers. The gabbers. They may not explicitly try to dominate social settings, but they have an incessant need to share everything, from how their cats are feeling today to what the weather is like. They want to be heard. How do you have a relationship like this in the digital world? You elevate them in the conversation. If they are talented enough, you invite them to write some content for you. You write thought-provoking content that enables them to comment with their ideas and their opinions. You empower them to hold court.
• BFF. The top of the digital relationship pyramid. People have made a deep, emotional connection in these intimate relationships. Maybe they read a piece of content (and think you “get it”). Maybe they have had a few conversations via social media. Whatever, they feel like you understand them (and it helps that they love your product and rave about it to friends). In the digital world, BFFs usually are not attention hounds, but they want to feel involved. They want special attention (i.e., a members-only section on the website or part of a special committee). Let’s face it: you are asking information from them for a reason, right? Give them sneak previews. Give them red-carpet treatment. Produce content just for them (that they can send to their friends).

Of course, these are just examples. People can move between relationship types depending upon their needs. And, more importantly, you can move people from relationship type to relationship type simply by recognizing all of that new behavior that we covered earlier in this chapter.

Relationship Types and Brands

This is where things can get really confusing. Are people forming relationships with brands or are they forming relationships with other people? Actually, because of the brand personification we explored earlier, there really isn’t much difference. The relationship we develop with a person (i.e., give and take, need and giving) is ultimately the same type of relationship we form with a brand. Susan Fournier, one of the leading experts in brand relationship theory, sums it up perfectly: “Robust brand relationships are built not on the backs of brands, but on a nuanced understanding of people and their needs, both practical and emotional.16 Consumer relationships to brands are not impersonal. And they are not exposed by studying or understanding the brand itself. It is through the needs of people (i.e., the relationship needs we outlined above) that an organization can best understand the relationship between itself and its audience. As Esther Lee, former chief creative officer at Coca-Cola and current head of advertising at AT&T says, “It’s just not just about customers anymore, it’s about people.”17d

Understanding the Relationship Cycle

We’ve filled this chapter up with a lot of theory.

So, let’s now get to some practical advice:

• Recognize the behavior of people and their relationships.
• Recognize where they are in the relationship cycle (mentioned in Chapter 1). See Figure 4.8.

  Figure 4.8 The Relationship Cycle

  

Let’s break down what this relationship cycle means, especially as it relates to your ability to form relationships (as a brand/person) with your audience:

• Consumers spend attention.
• Organizations attract attention through digital content.
• Attention can lead to engagement.
• Engagement can lead to many different types of relationships (back to the relationship pyramid we introduced earlier in this chapter).
• Positive, repeated engagement can become habit.
• Habit can lead to loyalty.
• Loyalty can lead to intimacy.
• Intimacy can lead to a sense of belonging.

In terms of that digital relationship pyramid, this cycle gets people from the bottom to the top by providing them exactly what they want, need, and expect from you.

Saturn, the General Motors brand from the 1990s, pioneered this approach to selling.e

Their salespeople simply made themselves available. You need information? Yes, they could provide that. You wanted to talk about the car, maybe swap a few stories? Sure, they could do that as well. What this strategy accomplished was developing a relationship with people on their terms. They recognized what people wanted, gave them the content and interaction they needed to support their needs, and then engaged when they could. Do you want to know what they were following to do it? Yes, that’s right—the relationship cycle. They just didn’t know it (and neither did GM when they shut down the nameplate, which shows how really big brands can fail to recognize the true value of relationships).

So how do you not end up like GM—unaware of the power they had created with a brand that became a part of so many people’s relationship network? You pay attention:

• You group people into various relationship types.
• You identify where groups are in the relationship cycle.
• You target your digital marketing efforts to move people along the relationship cycle toward intimacy (where you really want them).

And, as you continue to provide each relationship type with what they want, you will continue to provide a positive experience. Positive experiences develop into habits. Habits can lead to loyalty. Loyalty can lead to intimacy.

Cycles, Pyramids, and Types

We’ve introduced three core concepts about relationships in this chapter:

In Figure 4.9, we’ve combined these concepts into a single illustration representing how they all work together. When an organization engages with an audience, three things happen:

Figure 4.9 The Relationship Cycle and the Digital Relationship Pyramid Combined

So, you can think about it this way:

• The relationship cycle is the how in forming relationships. It describes the process by which people change from just another nameless, faceless audience member to a brand advocate.
• The digital relationship pyramid is the what in forming relationships. It describes the kind of relationship you have with anybody in your audience.
• The relationship types are the why in forming relationships. Each type describes a reason for the kind of relationship that an audience member has with you.

Nirvana: Becoming Part of the Tribe

What happens when you have a bunch of people at the top of the pyramid? You have a tribe.

Remember what digital does to people and their relationships. It enables them to go horizontal, to form connections with people they wouldn’t otherwise have. But, no matter how much digital enables us to reach out more, we are still slaves to one of the most essential and fundamental of human needs—the need to belong.

It’s why we join clubs and play sports and, most recently, participate in online chats and blogs. Some digital companies have even taken advantage of this. LinkedIn, the most popular business-focused social network, enables you to create groups around specific topics. But LinkedIn is just one example. Lots of social networks and online community sites (like GoodReads) are predicated around this core, human need. Digital just makes it possible to participate in groups that you may have never been able to join before (i.e., breaking down geographic barriers).

That’s why the top of the pyramid is so important to companies like Apple, Saturn, and Nike. Because when people hit a level of intimacy—when they are providing you information even though you haven’t asked for it—they bond together based on that relationship. They share an experience that helps deepen the relationship they have to the thing . . . and potentially to all the new people with whom they can now connect.

Notes

1. You can play this game at “The Oracle of Kevin Bacon” located at www.oracleofbacon.org.

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation.

3. Jure Leskovec and Eric Horvitz, “Planetary-Scale Views on an Instant-Messaging Network,” June 2007, http://arxiv.org/abs/0803.0939.

4. Christopher Bergland, “The Neuroscience of Perseverance.” December 26, 2011, www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201112/the-neuroscience-perseverance.

5. Daniel Honan, “Neuroplasticity: You Can Teach An Old Brain New Tricks,” October 17, 2012, http://bigthink.com/think-tank/brain-exercise.

6. John Tierney, “What’s New? Exuberance for Novelty Has Benefits,” New York Times, February 13, 2012, www.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/science/novelty-seeking-neophilia-can-be-a-predictor-of-well-being.html?_r=0.

7. Based on an article by Ase Dragland. “Big Data, for Better or Worse: 90% of World’s Data Generated Over Last Two Years,” Science News, May 22, 2013, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130522085217.htm.

8. Sherry Turkle, Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other (New York: Basic Books, 2001).

9. Patrick Coffee, “PR Fail: Baker’s Chocolate Draws Facebook Fans’ Wrath,” PRNewser, August 15, 2013, www.mediabistro.com/prnewser/pr-fail-bakers-chocolate-draws-facebook-fans-wrath_b70057.

10. Steve Toth, “What Is ZMOT and How Can It Help Your Business?” TechWyse Internet Marketing. From: http://www.techwyse.com/blog/internet-marketing/what-is-zmot-and-how-can-it-help-your-business/

11. Google. ZMOT Handbook. From: http://ssl.gstatic.com/think/docs/2012-zmot-handbook_research-studies.pdf

12. Jim Lecinski, “Winning the Zero Moment of Truth.” Google. 2011. From: http://ssl.gstatic.com/think/docs/2011-winning-zmot-ebook_research-studies.pdf

13. Karl Moore, “How Sales is Totally Different From 10 Years Ago: RIP The Sales Funnel.” Forbes.com, August 1, 2011, www.forbes.com/sites/karlmoore/2011/08/01/how-sales-is-totally-different-than-10-years-ago-rip-the-sales-funnel/.

14. We reference Mike Volpe in a number of chapters throughout this book. These references are from an interview conducted with Mike on September 11, 2013. You can learn more about Mike at www.mikevolpe.com.

15. We reference Ted Rubin in a number of chapters throughout this book. These references are from an interview conducted with Ted on November 1, 2013. You can learn more about Mike at www.tedrubin.com.

16. Susan Fournier, “Lessons Learned About Consumers’ Relationships with their Brands,” in Handbook of Brand Relationships, ed. D. MacInnis, C. Whan Park, and J. Priester (Eds.) (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe), 65–81.

17. Danielle Sacks, “From Denny’s to Charmin, Brands Try to Crack the Social Conversation,” Fast Company, January 15, 2013, www.fastcompany.com/3004364/dennys-charmin-brands-try-crack-social-conversation.

aYou can actually get the “Kevin Bacon Number” of any actor or actress by typing their name and “Kevin Bacon Number” into Google.

bHere is a concrete example: Facebook. Users who are new to Facebook will try to use the system more often. They will add friends, try to engage, post replies on comments. But if there is not enough reward, they will stop using it. At some point in the Facebook experience, a user is going to get enough feedback (i.e., responses to their status posts, engagement as part of their comments on other posts, etc.) that a habit will form—checking Facebook regularly because they want the reward more often (dopamine released in the brain).

cNote: these stats are taken from a blog post (http://wikibon.org/blog/big-data-statistics/) that is dated August 1, 2012. What do you want to bet that the numbers have only gone up?

dKeely Galgano, in her paper “Brand Personification in the Digital Age” (Winter, 2013), does an analysis of three companies (Oreo, Heineken, and Nike) and how they are building relationships with consumers. She concludes, based on her analysis, “that in each case, the brand’s presence on various social media outlets . . . allowed consumers to view them as a friend, making determinations about the expectations of their relationship and interacting with them on a more personal level” (www.slideshare.net/keels223/independent-study-final-draft).

eWe use Saturn because they ultimately weren’t closed because of their sales process but rather a lackluster ability by General Motors to innovate and differentiate the care technology (something the brand had originally set out to do with its dent-proof door panels and innovative motor).