The Pre-crime Department: Social Media

I found this very interesting article which argues that social media engagement is not itself a strategy but a tactic - and that institutions should focus on the long term with social media.  

The article gives the example of the Dutch Bank ABN AMRO, which used social media as a digital CRM platform to maintain customer satisfaction. What peaked my interest was the firm's use of "pre-customer support" - truly being able to anticipate what customers need before the need has fully developed. This idea reminded me of the hit 2002 summer blockbuster Minority Report where a fictions enforcement agency arrested individuals before a crime was committed. in the movie, the Precrime department was able to predict individuals intentions and arrest individuals for future crimes. This is a very interesting idea that can be applied to social media. 

No, not arresting people for a future crime based on a tweet. In the article's example, there was a special embedded section in customer management department that would scour social networks to find customer's having problems in order to provide them with trustworthy and accurate financial solutions. This idea of "pre-customer support" is extremely powerful in that you can address developing problems before they ever arise. In practice, individuals need not be customer's of ABN AMRO or have even mentioned the financial institutions they use - a powerful tool to poach customers. I think this would lead to a stronger conversion rate and higher retention rate of customers. 

MUST WATCH TED VIDEO

Because it is very insightful and revealing. Trust me, you'll thank me when you're finished. 

http://www.ted.com Devdutt Pattanaik takes an eye-opening look at the myths of India and of the West -- and shows how these two fundamentally different sets of beliefs about God, death and heaven help us consistently misunderstand one another.

50 Tweets = Ability to Scientifically Predict Personality and Buying Behavior.

I will be saying this till I'm blue in the face - linguistics is a great tool to impact marketing, branding and segmentation. What you say - more specifically how you say it, describes a lot about your own personality. This article I found suggests that just by capturing 50 tweets companies can analyze and predict what products or services you are more likely to buy.  

But how? Let me describe a little bit of the science behind tweet psychology. 

The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us

By James W. Pennebaker

"The quick foxed jumped over the mean lazy brown dog."

Ok. Now, you ready? This is going to be very, very, very hard. Pay attention. Please keep reading this sentence a bit, maybe this word "Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis" - I just need you to get further down this paragraph so you can't see the first sentence. GOOD - Don't look up! Now, how many non-verb/subject/adv/adj words were in the sentence about the fox from above. If you said 3, you're a super-freak - No, JK, you are normal however the point of this exercise is to demonstrate the transient nature of pronouns (and all other words that aren't verbs, adjs, advs or nouns for that matter).  Your brain is programmed to strip away this non-essential information like meat from a bone. Pronouns and all of these filler words (because, that, we, up, therefore, she, besides, however) are parsed out of normal conversation and forgotten. Your brain remembers the: Who, What, Where, When and Why - the meat. 

When in doubt, follow the crazy people

Pronouns and Nouns/Verbs/Adj/etc are filed in two completely different sections of the brain. One way to prove this is to study the effects of brain damage and speech. There are actually two different types of studied medical injuries that are a result of brain damage in two separate parts of the brain - the two injuries would speak thusly: 

“You know, that stuff where those things move up and down and even though things come out”

— Patient Bud Abbott

“Mary knows keyboard keys help people print documents”

— Patient Lou Costello

You'll notice that Bud Abbot has a hard time using anything but "filler words" (pronouns, prepositions) while Lou Costello  can't seem to find one single filler word - he only uses proper names and verbs. This is because Bud Abbot has received damage to the Nouns/Verbs/Adj/etc processing center of his brain while Lou Costello has received damage to his filler "social words" processing center.  

Twitter pronouns are key to marketing

So, now we agree that filler words, compared to nouns and verbs, are contained in different boxes in the mind? Would it surprise you to hear that pronouns and fillers are kept in the very front, youngest part of the brain - the "social" box? (which makes sense as they are social referents). Nope? Moving right along, how you use these social referents tells us a lot about how you live in a social world. For example, do you use the "I" pronoun more than the "we" pronoun? DID YOU KNOW - men use the pronoun "I" slightly more often then women, while women use the pronouns "You /He/She" slightly more often than men.

So users that tweet "s/he" more often and use causal words (because, cause, on account of) are more likely to be rational, logical, social thinkers - who would obviously gravitate to a certain kind of product or experience. Now the game is over. BAM, once the company has you profiled they can market to you more effectively.

Research has already shown that these traits link to buying behaviour. Agreeable people prefer Pepsi to Coke and if you link your product messages to excitement and adventure, it will appeal to the extroverts.

All well and good, but how can brands find out the psychological profiles of their potential customers? After all, no-one is going to go through a long personality test to give marketers the information they need to harass them.

The answer is via social media, specifically Twitter. IBM’s research has used software to analyse three months data from 90m Twitter users, matching the words people use against their values and needs. It took just 50 tweets to get a reasonable match for their personality and a very good fit from 200.

Coca Cola, Linguistics & Brand Mgmt.

There has been an article circulating about variations in English pronunciation and word usage around the continental United States. It is a very good read - find it here. After glancing through the 20 plus maps in the article that delineate the variations in English, a few peaked my interest.

The above map shows what words Americans use to describe a "sweetened carbonated beverage". How do you call it? I most certainly do not say pop - which sounds to me like a phrase pulled from the 1920's. 

Coke or Soda: Which One is Better? 

However what we can see from this map is the green area in the southern United States - Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and parts of Georgia. This area uses the word "Coke" to refer to all types of soda. This phenomenon is not new to the marketing world - where one extremely popular, ubiquitous brand becomes the word of choice. The stereotypical examples of this are Kleenex and Bandaid - what do you call a bandaid if it isn't a Bandaid? 

Coke: Brand Dissolution  

I believe that Coca Cola should be mildly concerned with the linguistic developments in the south.  When certain brands become so popular they change the nomenclature of the market - the brand has begun to bleed. When Coke's name, which has been fortified with billions of marketing and branding dollars, is associated with other brands they may begin to enjoy Coke's marketing benefits. Although Coke may rule the South this does not mean that such language cannot spread north or east or west. I think it wouldn't hurt for Coke to invest in a marketing campaign to reassert their position in the market and stem the tide. What do you think?

Just For Fun

I come from RI and we always call the water fountain the bubbler (read: /BUB-lah/) . Is it me or is it weird that Wisconsin and one lone little state in New England use this strange term? #foodforthought

The Power of Social Video

I totally agree - videos are some of the strongest engagement pieces and should always be incorporated into a good social marketing campaign. Here's a video about videos and it proves my point - very attention grabbing (and has doubled views since I first saw it yesterday - currently as of this posting it is at - 43,929). Not to mention producing your own video really forces you to create your own unique content. Learn how to edit a little - couldn't hurt your social media abilities (look at the videos I've made)

http://www.ripplingmedia.com Social Media has changed the way consumers and brands connect, it has become intrinsic to a brands marketing mix. Video is the crown jewel of sticky content and the closest thing to real life, this powerful medium is being embraced in unfathomable volumes across powerful channels....the new frontier, don't be left behind.