The Social Expression Phenomena

It was not too long ago when Del.Icio.Us was bought around March 2006. You can check out the prices here for bookmarking sites like Flickr as well. Why is social bookmarking such an influential phenomenon? Well, I have a few guesses, but you have to take a step back as a profiteer and look at it from a psychological perspective.

Everyone wants to get on the Internet. But most people are wary of it. The only sites you can trust are those that presently have an ongoing discussion and have a lot of people. Call it social proof. Call it mass persuasion. Whatever you like. The fact is, people like to see people express their views.

While this may seem frivolous to some of you, you will beg to differ when you watch popular blogs. Most popular blogs are the ones that generate a huge amount of controversy. Perhaps, this approach fosters the new phenomenon of link baiting. However, the psychology behind it is very clear – if you want to really build your popularity, you have to express things that get people’s attention, so sometimes it may mean treading on controversy and dangerous grey areas.

As the Investigative Marketer begins to seek out new angles, the truth of the matter is that social expression is a new psychological desire amongst people. It’s the new Utopia of democracy. Each of the engines that have demonstrated huge spurts of growth include Podcasting, blogging, social bookmarking and all similar elements. Even the once popular foums and bulletin boards have not died. Groups on Yahoo and Google still thrive if specific rules and regulations are established.

The entire culture of people can be formed once a popular concept has been created. It’s like a new breed of nationality. Different factions are created, and expression-wars can be waged on cyberspace. This new trend has taken the world by storm, and is likely to be the next goldmine in marketing.

Why?

Let’s look at this objectively. First of all, expression generates pages. With more pages on a website, it grows in size and therefore is more easily found on the search engines. Second, expression of views leads to someone building a vested interest in that comment or post. This ends up creating a far more loyal band of users than normal. Third, social expression engines like Digg and Flickr are also opinion sites. People now have the power to express their opinions. Anonymously or in person, this doesn’t really matter. What matters is that these opinions make one feel connected to that opinion that was made. Third, social expression lends itself to a conversation. It’s a new way of looking at interaction online. The web has evolved into a completely new entity, with the capability for multi-media. Your blogs now come alive. Your comments can be replied with via video MP4s. You are no longer restricted by text alone.

What implication does this have?

We all know that marketing requires some kind of target market. So the question is, how do you utilize the power of this concept to generate such a powerful social expression engine, that people will treat it as a part and parcel of their lives? Look at a simple tool like Outlook. Every opportunity Outlook users have in replying emails is like how we used to pass notes in class from one side of the room to the other while the teacher was droning away. Messaging is like conversation.

Now imagine a world where you can express anything you want. Everybody can do this on a site. You can decide collectively as a whole whether or not to make a decision. Usually, it is also a sign of the times. This creates a community. Decisions are made such that everyone is affected. You decide whether someone’s blog comment is valuable or not on Digg. You decide the popularity of a photograph as posted on Flickr. Whatever the case, you have inherent power. Your vote can skew opinions.

A marketer then has to start to recognize the sheer power of social proof on such an engine. Imagine a product being reviewed on a site that receives world wide tagging and sharing. Information becomes available immediately. People can then determine if that product is popular and useful. This is a very powerful concept.

Imagine you had hordes of traffic due to individuals gathering for a specific cause and sense of community. This goes beyond community. It essentially brings the internet business model into a much higher frame than before. This means you need to respect the masses who buy from you. This means you have to create value to affect people. This means you cannot just involve the audience – you may have to polarize them and get them to experience you wholisitically.
The more your social expression engines begin to evolve, the more creative ideas will come up. Watch the Digg and Swarm of Digg.com. The entire site is alive with constant updates and regular connections. It’s a microcosm being affected by the macrocosm. The small universe being created, a virtual reality. The next phase in development of social expression will bring more intimate interaction to the world. In the near future, perhaps you will have encounters with real people, much the same way as in mass multi-player role playing games like Warcraft. You might meet individuals online and speak to them, as though you were there in person. You might create a completely new world and live in it as if it were real.

In marketing, you now begin to see how traffic gets built. The most massive element for the moment is the way in which places like MySpace, sold at $580 million, continues to build social networks, and social bookmarking sites like Del.Icio.Us continue to involve users in their opinions and votes. Eventually, internet marketers will need to look at ways to leverage on these technologies, combine them, then infuse them with the marketing message. Such blended technologies will help internet marketers reach a higher level of sophistication and build much higher levels of contact and interaction online. As a result, the game rules of persuasion and copywriting may change. Individuals will probably need effective face-to-face communication skills as the web evolves into a true interactive engine. The rules of product positioning will change, and therefore affect the way in which the features are expressed – and whether the majority of people like them or not.

Opinion polls will matter more than ever before. You can now even decide the ideal product to create before the individual buys it because you can approach a site with a social engine like this to build understanding first. Imagine how powerful it will be when you can hit the nail on the head and create a product that people instantly know they will buy and love. It’s a really powerful concept.

What to do next?

Build your social engine? Sure… and hope that some media mogul will buy it for $580 million? Well, the truth is that many clones are gaining popularity in the market. Even the large community at Sourceforge is building a system for the purpose of bookmarking called Scuttle. This will be the next phase of evolution for websites! Just like blogs and content management systems are taking over the development of traditional websites, social expression will eventually be commonplace as a website of your choice. It’s like how starting pages 10-12 years ago would never have had music or video on them, but today it would almost seem odd without them.

Look to converging technologies? This is another option. You look at how websites will eventually be built with audio and video, plus a polling function that enables them to express what they feel about what you think or say in your blog. Then, ensure that there is a tagging function. At present tagging is chaotic, running pretty much like in the concepts of Chaos Theory. When some order is generated from the apparent buzz, something phenomenal like Digg happens. Yes, interactivity, profiling and possibly even the convergence of phone and broadband connectivity in the future will generate the real virtual reality world. But as a user of the internet today, your marketing methods must begin to employ the soft side of marketing such as loyalty building, and opportunity for opinion, plus other harder sides such as copywriting and content creation.

Ignore this – and face the consequences?
I truly think that social expression engines will be the mother lode of traffic and ecommerce. Read about them, and consider them very carefully. The future, as it seems, is right around the corner!

To check out social bookmarking, click here.

To check out one of the hottest social networks today, click here.