Olson / Zaltman is an internationally recognized market research firm spawned out of Harvard and Penn State Universities. They developed and patented the groundbreaking research methodology (ZMET) that opens the subconscious metaphors consumers use to make buying decisions. Now widely used by the world’s largest institutions and businesses to develop marketing strategies, they are turning their attention to Social Media. In their most recent newsletter they draw a parallel between how people view social media today and the way mankind has created personal relevance throughout history. Hopefully, it will create insights for you. Pay close attention to the skunks.
What Social Media Users and Cavemen Have In Common:
Alan enjoyed this. The value has not beem realised by our industry yet.
This is really interesting, Alan. You commented to me once that you weren’t sure why some folks (myself included I think) have a lot of interactions on their Facebook pages with friends commenting on various threads. The storytelling angle, allowing a place for folks to talk about what is on their minds, to “become legendary” and to create communities of people who share various interests, etc., seems to do as much to explain the phenomenon as anything I have seen. Good job in passing this along!
Alan,
This is another great article. Thanks for bringing it to us. The last paragraph can be easily related to funeral service. “platform providers able to satisfy the need for greater audience segmentation and efficient user controlled gate-keeping will be at an advantage in offering users around the world with precisely what humans have been after for centuries: A better way to tell their stories.” As I have stated before I believe that the true value of a funeral is the gathering together of people and the sharing of stories. The future success of our industry will depend on how well we can provide our customers with a “better way of telling their stories”, both online and even more importantly, in person.
As for Brad Speaks’ life on the social network, he has successfully segmented and controlled his audience and comments. His facebook persona focuses on his social, family, music and church life while he keeps his business comments pretty much to the business exclusive chat rooms. As a member of Brad’s audience I know what to expect, depending on what channel I’m watching him on. We could all learn a thing or two from him.
Dale