What’s social hierarchy gotta do with marketing?

So you watched the video and had a laugh? Jokes aside, did you notice the pick order of the pack? The obvious ones, The Leader (Google), The Loser (MySpace), The Challenger (Facebook) and the rest.

In every group environment, there is a social hierarchy – there is always an unofficial leader and more often than not, also an unofficial loser who seems to be at the receiving end of jokes and yet still does his best to be part of the group. Some of the other common characters are the challenger, the clown, the worker-bee, the thinker etc, many of which I’m sure you recognise .

Now if you think of a particular market space and the various brands / companies in it as a group environment, then there must also be a social hierarchy since brand / company image do interact in the marketspace (press news, user comments, editorial etc). Social media undoubtedly put this interaction on speed.

In the video you see The Leader (Google) gathering his group in an attempt to put down The Challenger (Facebook). The Juniors (Twitter, Foursquare) take stage to sling mud at The Challenger, while the Seniors (Youtube, LinkedIn) watch quietly from the sidelines. Juniors have less to lose and thus are typically more vocal. Seniors because of the weight they carry, tend to remain silent and weigh each word carefully before publicly expressing them. Like in the human world, The Loser always still gets his airtime (oddly, everyone would have preferred otherwise), and predictively would clumsily solidify his position as The Loser. And common sense tells you, being associated with The Loser is not good news for your position - see Gizmodo wince when mentioned by MySpace : )

Every Brand / Company in a market space should take a good look at which position the brand / company has in the social hierarchy. In this way, the brand / company can actively take control of its interaction in the group dynamics. Without that understanding, any interaction would be passive following the group dynamics and seem out of control.

As a new comer into an existing market, it is even more important. The brand / company needs to know who the players and their positions are. Just like a new boy in the class, the newcomer’s position in the group is determined by the group. Played right and positioned right, the brand / company’s every move seem like social magic. Got put in the wrong corner and every action would just come out wrong, there would be just no doing right.

Instead of merely looking at how a brand / company is communicating with its users, we should engage group dynamics.

You might say the video is scripted by people so it mirrors people behaviour. True. But the video is merely a convenient way to illustrate the social hierarchy. Put the video aside, pick a marketspace (socialmedia, tablets, cola, fashion… )and look its social hierarchy. Tell me if you too see the various characters alive and kicking. Have fun.

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Video “The Roast of Facebook” at CollegeHumor
Appearing in the video (did you spot them all?): Google, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Foursquare, JDate, Youtube, Netflix, StumbleUpon, Yahoo, LinkedIn, Flickr, Tumblr, Paypal, Digg, Hulu, Pandora, Gizmodo, Reddit, Friendster, CollegeHumor

ps. did you wonder so where is Apple in all this? Remember in your class, wasn’t there this one guy, independent, walk-his-own-path, odd, aloof, seems too cool or too something to be part of the group, never showed up at the prom, and later in life turns out to be either a hugely successful billionaire or a wannabe cross between pink floyd and andy warhol.

Facebook Real World: wife traps husband with fake profile, or so she thinks…

If you see this 17-year old girl Jessica Studebaker hooking up with you on Facebook, be warned, it’s too hot to be true. It’s the fake profile of an unhappy wife set up on Facebook to lure and trap her husband, as basis for divorce. Much to her joy, husband walks into trap, so it seems. They develop a friendship and husband starts talking about eloping, sharing information about putting a GPS tracker on the wife´s car and, and *you gotta sit down for this* wanting the wife to be “out of the picture” (aka kapish, zilch, wiped out). wow. This is the kind of stuff you see only on TV Soaps… it’s now gone onto Facebook. Does this also make Facebook an accessory to murder (in the event that the murder does happen)?

The soap elements continue… there’s a 360 degree twist. Husband knew all along and was playing to it, to catch the wife’s actions as (you guessed it) basis for divorce. geez. How can he prove it? He’s written an affidavit, stating his suspicion that it his wife and that he is merely going along with it, which he deposited with a notary at the bank, and also made a copy kept at a relative. Apparently he was not too dumb to disbelieve that a hot 17 year old girl would hit on him (37 years old).

What a mess. The whole case is now in court, we’ll have to see what the judge thinks of it all. Every week, every day, Facebook is showing up in very real world situations, very real life places, the good, the freakish as well as the ugly. I’m taking bets on when (not if) we’ll see reality shows (ala MTV Real World) on Facebook… I wonder which name it would be – a) Facebook Real World b) Facebook Raw c) Facebook The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

Boy sells kidney for iPad 2

http://digitallife.today.com/_news/2011/06/02/6772047-boy-sells-kidney-for-ipad-2

A 17 year old boy saw an internet ad to sell kidney, got in contact, negotiated the fee (about US$3500) because he wanted an iPad 2. Travelled alone to the hospital doing the surgery, got it done, got paid, and came home with an iPad 2 and a notebook. The cold shivering side of generation Like and Follow. sigh.

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