6 Ways Social Proof Shapes the Web
You’re walking down the street. You come across a group of 12 people, all curiously looking up at an open window on the 6th floor of a high-rise building.
What do you do?
You stop, look up, trying to see what it is that they’re all looking at.
This was a 1969 experiment done as part of a social contagion study. It demonstrated the effect known as social proof.
This single aspect of natural human behaviour is also responsible for;
- Football stampedes and the way crowds behave like an organism distinct from the individual
- The popularity of the iPod
- The dominance of Microsoft a desktop operating system
- The high levels of crime and corruption in South Africa
- High rates of obesity in many developed countries
- How some guys can consistently date women that are “out of their league”
- The development of complex languages and what we now know as “culture”
- Why yawning is contagious
- Why moods and attitudes are contagious
- Religion
This part of human nature, like so many other traits, is an evolutionary hangover.
The ability of human beings to learn rapidly and share knowledge is the single most important thing that set the species on the path to earthly superiority.
So what does that have to do with online behaviour?
Social Proof
“Social proof, also known as informational social influence, is a psychological phenomenon that occurs in ambiguous social situations when people are unable to determine the appropriate mode of behaviour. Making the assumption that surrounding people possess more knowledge about the situation, they will deem the behaviour of others as appropriate or better informed.”
Simply put, social proof is the way human actions are dictated by the actions of other humans.
Online, this tendency pops up all over the place…once you know to look.
Testimonials
Testimonials work. They establish credibility, they tell others that you’re a little bit of alright.
An effective testimonial conveys trust by drawing on the magic of social contagion.
SEO and link building
A big part of SEO relates to trust. The nature of search engines is such that relevant organic results depend largely on the opinions conveyed about websites by other websites.
Algorithms use various proxies for trust and opinion conference to score and measure the value of webpages.
This transfer of trust by 3rd (and 4th and 5th and beyond) parties is the reason inbound linkage plays a part in search results.
Social Media websites like De.licio.us, Technorati, Digg, StumbleUpon
Websites like those above are a great way to find premium content online. We know that it’s premium content because everyone else says it is.
Social network adoption
No-one wants to be the only person FaceBook, MySpace or LinkedIn.
There is no NETWORK without the SOCIAL.
The value of any social network is directly dependant on the other members of that network. People join social networks when others they know and trust tell them to.
The number of new members joining a social network will tend to increase exponentially. It’s what gives social networks an uptake curve that looks like this:
Ebay – seller ratings
Ebay is undoubtedly one of the most successful online trading platforms ever.
A huge part of that success was the way it handled the transfer of trust between buyers and sellers. A simple rating system that allowed buyers to rate the behaviour of sellers, and sellers to rate the behaviour of buyers, meant that a prospective buyer or seller could base their decisions partly on the experiences of other users.
This little bit of extra information lubricates the wheels of commerce especially in an environment where users are (rightly) apprehensive and cautious.
It can be argued that ebay revolutionised online trade in a very special way
Amazon – ‘other buyers bought’
This simple innovation – suggesting products favoured by other buyers – had a huge effect. Much like the more recent methods of making “most popular” content more visible to readers. “Here, you’ll like this. Others did”
Of course, there’s a lot more to be said on this subject – look out for the follow-up post.
In the meantime, read this, and this, and this…you’ll like it. Others did.
Where Are All The Black Web Professionals?
Last week, Mandy de Waal wrote a Who’s Who in the Web 2.0 Zoo story featuring some of the big names in the South African online sphere. (Let’s ignore for now the problems with talking about “Web 2.0 VS vanilla internet”)
One pull-quote from the piece caught my eye,
“White boy’s club
Empowerment seems to have touched every other industry sector, but this one. “
That reignited my curiousity on the question:
Where are all the black web professionals?
It’s a question I’ve raised many times over the past few years and I’ve never been able to come up with a satisfactory answer.
I remember, back when I was working with Quirk and they were trying to improve their BEE credentials, how much of a challenge it was for them and how much of a challenge it is for many traditionally white businesses trying to toe the empowerment line.
For sure there are black businesspeople operating in the online media space, but they are the barely visible minority.
Today Ramon Thomas, self-styled dating coach, motivational speaker, blogger and all round busy guy, wrote this follow-up, which is effectively a shadow list (no pun intended with the use of the word “shadow” – honest).
He closes his post with the question:
“Sometimes I wonder will South African media ever, ever be more representative. When white people own most of the media companies, produce most of the radio or television content, publish (edit) most of the newspapers, magazines or websites, what do you expect?”
It’s an interesting question, even if based on a somewhat flawed perception. Perhaps what we should be asking is,
“How are we, as participants in the new media industry, working to change the status quo?“
What these two pieces highlight is that there exists a network failure. The nature of social networks (the real world kind) is that there’s a tendency for homogeneity, especially in the short to medium term (long term always trends towards the diverse). Birds of a feather and all that.
To create diversity within specific sectors it’s important to sow the seeds of integration. Once you’ve done that things are more likely to naturally become inclusive.
With all of this in mind, for a while now I have been looking at creating an online network of black web professionals.
Something like the Forum for Black Journalists only without Jacob Zuma addressing the inaugural meeting, without throwing out the white people who want to contribute and without the assortment of coconut-flavoured high jinx that contributed to that particular organisation never getting off the ground.
My idea is simple. If we acknowledge the need for transformation within our sector then let’s be proactive and do something about it.
Where are all the black web professionals? Where are all the white web professionals who care about the fact that there are not enough black web professionals?
Some of the things to be debated would be:
- What exactly should such a network aim to achieve?
- How would such a project add value to the online industry in South Africa?
- How do we prevent the alienation of the white web professionals who arguably dominate the industry currently?
- Do black web professionals face challenges that their white counterparts don’t?
- What can the players in the industry do to speed up transformation within the industry?
- Should the end product be something like the Black Web 2.0 network from the US?
The idea is to create something that will:
- Propel black web professionals into the mainstream
- Help white businesses improve their BEE status in ways that create additional value
- Facilitate the transfer of skills to PDIs
- Help black businesses enter the modern web space.
The simple fact is that transformation is an important part of the South African business landscape and the online sector is lagging behind.
I am in the infant stages of putting something together but for projects of this kind, the more people involved the better.
If you agree that transformation is important and that there’s a need for this kind of initiative then give me a shout in the comments.
A contrarian view of The Contrarian’s view of Web 2.0
I’ve spotted this guest post over at CopyBlogger.
Written by Bob Hoffman, the author of “The Ad Contrarian,” it takes a very interesting look at how the web has changed (or not) marketing.
“…marketing on the web is evolving very much as marketing on tv evolved – people with stuff yelling at people with money.“
Some of the key points he makes are:
- The web is largely a passive medium for all but the geekelite
- Online marketing happens primarily through search, display or social media
- Search does not make content interactive any more than a library’s indexing system makes books interactive.
- Display ads don’t work. They’re “intrusive, wasteful, and inefficient” – everyone knows this yet it’s still the top revenue stream for many online publishers
- Social Media and “the conversation” – “the average consumer simply does not have the time or the inclination to have conversations with marketers“
I think Bob makes some very valid comments but I think marketing, much like anything else, should best be evaluated in relative terms.
Online media is MORE interactive than traditional media. Print advertising and TV advertising have been “not working” for years, yet advertisers still vote with their adspend.
- Users who search are looking for something. Helping them find it might not be a wholly interactive experience but it certainly does fulfil a marketing function when it associates your brand with the right kind of queries.
- Sometimes users DO click on display ads – especially when you’ve used imagery appropriate to your target market.
- Sometimes consumers DO want to have conversations with brands and their representatives – how you conduct these conversations can shape brand perception.
I think ultimately the point is that us interweb geeks must be careful of drinking our own kool-aid. We must learn to see the weaknesses if we are to maximise the strengths.