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Designing for Social Behavior by Sarah Parmenter – Notes from An Event Apart Talk

Feb 16, 2015 | An Event Apart 2015, Design, Social

Jeffrey totally burned her, because the whole Designers who say “since I was 3 this is what I wanted to do….” – that was gonna be my first slide.
When she was 3, she was really into 3 things:
  1. Singing
  2. Drawing
  3. Painting
She went through such a large amount of paper, that she would use her dad’s Atari perforated paper. Her parents bought her rolls of wallpaper. Her Dad put up wallpaper one day in an actual room, and she was SO EXCITED because she couldn’t believe that she now had a WHOLE ROOM that she could draw on!
Her Dad then introduced her to a computer (the Atari 500), and said “get used to drawing on this, you can’t break it and I think it’s going to be big.” She’s been at the crossroads of design and technology ever since.
The first few human interactions on the web were kind of weird… they weren’t quite natural. They slapped the term ‘social media’ on it.
We’ve made up this awful set of words to try to put it in a box… we’re in the next phase of the internet, where the internet has become a natural extension of who we are as humans. She prefers the term Social Mediblah. #socialmediblah
We post only gleaming accounts of what we do and we curate what we share about our lives. Everything is very open and public… I don’t think we truly understand how public this information is… It may take a big breech of a network for us to really get it. (cough Snapchat)
Social media : A tool to make something happen.

We don’t have to sell the web anymore. Everyone understands the value of the internet now. We’re now seeing that one simple website isn’t enough. The website goes up and nothing happens.
Build it and they will come IS NOT TRUE.
We’ve put those social media buttons at the bottom of everything and expect something to happen.
WE NEED AN ECOSYSTEM THAT EXTENDS FAR BEYOND OUR WEBSITE. WE HAVE TO DESIGN THE ENVIRONMENTS FOR THESE SOCIAL INTERACTIONS TO HAPPEN. IF ANYTHING BREAKS WE LOSE AUTHENTICITY.
We are struggling to understand.
If you can pull all these things together when so few other designers and developers are doing so, you build incredible value. Your work also sells itself because you are building this ecosystem. You then don’t have to prove yourself, but you have the freedom to do what you think is right.
The general social approach (take on things and post it on all social media platforms) doesn’t work. There are different audiences for each network and you as a designer / developer need to understand something about each network. Each network has its nuances and purposes.
What matters about SM is not the amount of posts but the spreadability and reach of those posts.
What she’s learned about some social networks recently (huge amount of research);
FACEBOOK
Facebook is pretty much dead to the younger generation (to the under 19/20 year olds). Why?  We’re on it. They don’t want their family members to see what they’re doing. They have accounts but they don’t use it actively. They use the messaging app. Facebook split out their messaging app because the younger generation predominately uses that alone. They are not as stupid as we think. They are fully aware that if they post something on Facebook it may end up in the wrong hands.
INSTAGRAM
This is huge to the younger generation and is just catching on for us. The younger generation takes great pride in curating highly beautiful imagery… to the point that they will use external apps to edit it, then send 6 versions to their friends
They like Instagram because of the infrequency of posting. They don’t feel the social pressure of having to keep their followers up. They feel like there’s more authenticity.
TUMBLER
Alive and kicking for the younger generation. They feel there is a sense of anonymity around Tumblr that they don’t get on social networks. Tumblr is where you are your true self. We don’t particularly use Tumblr.
TWITTER
1. Complain and share about their lives
2. Tweet to build a portfolio
3. People to retweet
Not huge for the younger generation because of lack of anonymity.
People use Twitter in different ways. The adult generation is exceptionally aware that everything is public.
SNAPCHAT
This is huge to the younger generation. They feel like it’s where they can really be themselves because their content expires in a certain amount of time.
Conversions (mostly for Twitter)
When asking someone to do something with monetary value, there is an average 0.04% interaction.
Out of her 44K Twitter followers, she may convert 17.
How to address your followers better:
Take a quarter of your followers (average reach of a tweet/post), think of addressing those people like they’re in a cozy campfire of people filled with your biggest brand ambassadors. What do you want to tell that small amount of people? What secrets can you let them in on? Not all of your subscribers and followers are sitting there waiting for your next email or post. If you get intimate and talk on their level, magic will happen. Let this far smaller amount of people ‘in on something’. Don’t be salesy.
Sometimes you can spend years building up a follower base but you have to pay to access them! (Facebook Advertising). So how can you gather these followers in a way you can access them without paying fees.
Start thinking of your social media plan as building an ecosystem to support your company’s/brand’s goals.
The Psychology behind Social
The fan club idea – send in $15 to become part of someone’s fan club, then you get sent stuff. Took that and turned it into an app where the members get rewarded for interacting with posts that they could then redeem for things like concert tickets.
They had to design for some of the biggest names (Justin Beiber, Ariana Grande…), and also for the superfans.
You have to start with the psychology of what makes both sidestick.
The like button has an umbrella approach depending on the age group of the user. Sometimes it’s used to acknowledge they’ve seen a piece of content. They use it almost like a ‘read’ button. They also use it to acknowledge something someone has responded to them. They also use it to see who else has liked similar pieces of content, to connect and make friendships. Likes are also an instant metric of a post – and these metrics can get VERY specific.
Why do people comment? 
It seems simple but when we are dealing with the number of comments on a post, something gets lost very quickly. Why would someone comment if they know it will get lost almost immediately? Is something broken here?
Participation Media.
It’s like throwing a small pebble into a very large lake. At least you’re making ripples, at least you’re adding something.
This is similar to tribe behavior, which is a form of social proof, deeming the actions of those around you to be correct/normal.
People will use broken, nasty things.
Also, people want to break your system. They want to hack it, to gain it. This is kids and adults. People want to find the loophole.
Both lovers and haters are very quick to comment, but the haters are quicker. Keep a balanced view of how many people are on the platform and how many comments you have.
——-
2 attributes of fantastic campaigns:
Authenticity
Commitment
COMMITMENT:
It’s not always the content, it’s the fact that you show up and keep doing it. People get to know you and like you and buy into YOU.  Zoe Sugg (“Zoella”) is a great example of this. She just outsold JK Rowling. She was the fastest-selling author ever. She didn’t rise to fame until 2 years after she was posting her YouTube videos day in and day out.
CutiePie (Swedish YouTuber) makes $250,000 a month just from ad-based YouTube income because he talks over video games that he’s playing…….
Sometimes we get discouraged because we don’t see immediate sales/results. It’s ok, that’s not how it works.
AUTHENTICITY:
Be sure to give people something they can’t get elsewhere.
She opened a blowout bar… their form of authenticity was that they had an amazing bank of photography that looked like women ACTUALLY would want to look like.
Something that makes you different is not a bad thing ever.
You need both authentic professional and authentic authentic to get the best out of the platforms. Look professional outwardly that is professional, but also drop the veil and show what’s going on behind the scenes.
Instagram is for high quality but NOT staged photos.
People presume that a professional / beautiful on a platform like Facebook is stock, and that you did not take the effort to produce something so beautiful. So, use real pictures for Facebook posts and ads especially for engagement.
Avoid long text posts on Facebook unless you’re putting out a public service announcement.
CASE STUDY
Who is doing Social Media brilliantly – Free People
Clothing brand
Their website updates daily in conjunction with their email newsletter. Ensuring that the content/graphics are rotated and fresh is a great concept. They update pinterest daily. There’s nothing exceptional here, but it’s a blend of user created imagery and product. Their instagram mimics their pinterest but with a lot more user generated content. Their Twitter is a blend of non-hard selling tweets and witty copy. They have a few product tweets, and that’s only possible with rock solid confidence with followers you’ve build up absolutely trust with. Their facebook has beautiful polished imagery. Their blog is updated frequently and has aspirational imagery – which has the purpose of getting the viewer to imagine themselves in that situation to sell something.
They have Free People Me, where people are allowed to upload images of customers in their clothing. This is the icing on the cake in her opinion. Having this for your company is super important.
LESSONS:
  • Don’t do the safe, expected thing. 
  • Be prepared to have difficult conversations. If you can’t do that it will limit your 
  • Look for the unusual, for the truly authentic. Don’t do what the social media experts are telling you to do. Social Media has not been around long enough for anybody to tell you what should be done, especially because it changes so quickly.
  • Think of it as your personal ecosystem, which needs to be a unique environment for what you/your businesses needs. 
  • Step away from the tribe. 

 

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