Anyone that’s ever been in a relationship will tell you there’s an enormous difference in what you will do for someone you “like” vs. someone you truly “love.”  The same goes for consumers and their relationships with brands and causes.

Just ask a company like JetBlue.   Last week, they were staring down the barrel at a public relations nightmare.  JetBlue has over 1.5 million followers on Twitter and over 300,000 fans that “Like” them on Facebook. Had it been any other airline, it would be easy to envision an uprising that would paralyze the brand in social media and characterize Steven Slater’s behavior as endemic of the state of the service levels of airline industry, in general.  Why didn’t that happen in this instance? Because JetBlue’s fans don’t just “like” the brand, they love the brand.

Sure, it’s great to have a large following in social media. You can even consider a consumer establishing a direct link with a brand or cause through a “like” a reasonable measure of engagement.  However, when a crisis occurs, it’s easy to see the difference between a fan that has a casual relationship with a brand or cause and one that has true feelings and passion for it.

For instance, “liking” a brand or cause can be well-correlated with a purchase consideration or a willingness to take action. The problem with “consumer consideration” is that it shouldn’t be confused with “consumer preference.”  Also, “like” does not necessarily imply a willingness to advocate or, for that matter, forgive for a brand or cause – both of which can be considered critical end goals for marketers.

In other words, engagement is great but endearment will get you much, much further.

The question is: how do you engineer endearment? Much like love itself, it’s a hard thing to just MAKE happen.  However, there are three elements of consumer endearment marketers CAN control that can get beyond “like” and closer to “love:”

1) Empathy

The first thing we look for in a relationship is something we can identify with.  If we can’t readily see ourselves as a part of a brand or causes’ narrative, there’s little we can do to make a consumer love us.

2) Aspiration

We don’t fall in love with something we find ordinary.  Instead, we fall in love with something we find exceptional, and we constantly aspire to find the exceptional. No matter how common the product, if it solves a problem or addresses the right need at the right time, it will be exceptional in the eyes of the consumer.

3) Empowerment

Finally, the best relationships empower us.   If your brand is viewed as overly engineered, then chances are it feels very inaccessible to consumers.  Alternatively, if the consumer has accessibility to answers on-demand or if the brand participates on social platforms where the consumer is on a regular basis, those consumers are much more likely to feel they can “own” a piece of the brand.  When consumers feel like they own a piece of the brand or have a stake in its success, only then do they feel truly empowered.

As consumers’ preferences become more fickle, it’s important to look beyond transactional engagement and look towards building long-term relationships with consumers.  It’s not easy and it’s certainly not as straightforward to measure, but building endearment will soon become a primary goal of brands who want to translate their social efforts into sustained lifts in sales.

Yesterday I headed out to the East Potomac Driving Range after work to hit a couple of balls and an amazing thing happened – I actually hit them! Now, for most golfers this is nothing to write home about.  However, the last couple of weeks have been less than excellent for me so the idea of seeing progress in my quest for the perfect swing is a big win in my book.

In case you are not among the group of friends and family in which I confide things as they happen, I went through a pretty bad breakup.  In fact, the context and circumstances of the breakup were such that I really didn’t get the full brunt of it, emotionally until the last week or two.  The short version is that I let myself substitute perseverance for emotional rationality and ended up getting hurt…badly.

Ever since, I’ve been trying to find my way back to the things that I do well while trying to find some sense of progress in what I learned from the breakup.  That’s where the golf thing comes in.

If you’ve ever tried to hit a golf ball, or even better taken a lesion, you know there are a lot of things you have to remember in order hit the ball, correctly.  Get in an athletic stance, keep your eye on the ball no matter what, lean over, keep your elbow straight, follow-through with your whole body, ease up on the back-swing – it’s a process of constant self-correction. Honestly, remembering all those things is exhausting but if you do it enough, you start to see the payoff.

That’s why going out to the driving range and actually hitting the ball was such a big deal. It was proof that what I am learning is paying off.  While it’s not a panacea for the broken heart, it’s certainly good to know I’m at least making progress in one part of my life. It’s also an affirmation of the fact that, like relationships, there are very few people that they come into the perfect swing naturally.

When it comes down to it, golf is a mental game.  The more you get out of your head, the better off you are. It’s just a matter of putting yourself into the right position and letting your body do the rest. You see where this analogy is going?

Breakups are never easy, neither are relationships.  The best we can hope for is that if we swing and miss, we learn to correct, wait until it feels right and try again. It may be frustrating as hell to get it wrong but it’s a great feeling when you are on your way to getting it right.

Photo Courtesy of pocketwiley

One of the interesting things about being on the “agency side” of social media is that so much of the work we do is about educating clients about the landscape, language and psychology of social. Unlike other, better-known medium, social places more emphasis on the psychology of the consumer and how they interact with various platforms. That usually means doing a lot of client education through both direct briefings about the features and advantages of social platforms as well as real-time experimentation.

Though not a lot of people will admit it, a lot of what we do in social media is what we make up as we go along. Sure, we know what generally works and what doesn’t, social requires you to think in terms of individuals rather than in crowds. In other words; if you can pick out a consumer, there’s a good chance that the social strategy you’ll pick to engage and activate that consumer will be unlike any other you’ve tried before.

Now, we’re not just pulling ideas out of thin air.  The question of individuals vs crowds reinforces the nature of playing in the social space. For instance, so what if a print ad doesn’t directly cause a sale? We’re convinced by previous data that that if you throw a ton of money at traditional media, somewhere along the way it’s going to result in lift.

With social, you’re talking about tactics that can be tracked and that means that there’s a higher expectation in place to perform. Whether you’re talking about getting someone to fan a page or actually click-through to sample or purchase your product, the space you’re playing in is significantly more microcosmic than the world of “blast” media. In the end, that’s why measurement and metrics and message optimization via engagement rates matter.

It’s also all a part of learning the language and the psychology of social.

The cool thing is that once you get it, you really get it. You understand a lot more about what drives a consumer and you’re a lot more willing to free your brand, not to mention your strategy, to get what you want.

It takes patience, it’s takes guts but if you can appreciate the journey and why nuances like language and psychology matter, then you’re far more likely to succeed.

It’s 100 degrees outside in the city and what do you do? Grab some neighbors have have a water balloon fight:

Moral of the story, I love my friends….:).

Ok, if you live in DC and are interested in social media, technology, marketing or just love sausage…I’ve got an event for you.

Geek Breakfasts are casual monthly meet ups over coffee and breakfast to discuss social media, podcasting, blogging, programming, open source, SNSs and more. I brought this event up from Nashville, they are ALWAYS FREE (well, almost free – you only pay for what you have for breakfast) and are a great way to to network and get to know other social media and tech-minded people in DC.

Join us next Friday, July 30th for the next Geek Breakfast ! RVSP Now!!

Here’s the event info:

Geek Breakfast DC – July
Friday, July 30, 2010
7:30am – 9:00am
Harriet’s Restaurant
436 11th Street, NW
Washington, DC
View Location Map

Hope to see you there!

Everyone wants to be the hero of his or her own narrative. Everyone wants to believe that theirs is the righteous and just side of the fight. There is nothing really wrong with this feeling, per se. Its a part of the human ego and rooted in the Maslovian desire for self-preservation.

There is one problem, however, that arises from the thought of someone as a hero. That problem is that when the hero encounters someone that works against their interests or interferes with “their fight,” that person becomes a villain. Villains, to the hero, serve only one of two purposes – to foil the good deeds of the hero, or to mastermind plans to undermine the hero, themselves.

Here’s the rub; villains do not usually consider themselves villains. They actually consider themselves heroes and their own narrative and their own fight just happens to be contrary to that of the original hero. If you have seen it; Wicked is a great example of this paradox. It turns out that the Wicked Witch of the West doesn’t turn out to be wicked at all but instead a persecuted soul that is trying to make right in her own ways.

My point is not to try to blow your mind with circular logic or to over-analyze Disney fairytales. My point is to shed light on the fact that we should spend more time trying to understand the motivations of others and less time blaming them for what we think they’ve done wrong to us.

Real heroes don’t think in terms of “right” and “wrong” but try to view the world as others see it and act accordingly to achieve their end goal.

The downside to this mania is that you end up saying “yes” most of the time and passing over those times you should have said “no.” Even when what you have is what you want, you don’t want to give it up for something that you may ultimately need. Giving up is just not a viable option if you want to build something substantial like a business or, in my case, a life.

However, what happens when you realize that learning when to say “no” may just help you reach further in the end?

If someone knows how to do that; I certainly hope they tell me. Up until now, those two little letters have been harder to articulate then anything I have ever written.

After 11 months of being in DC, I’ve been trying to figure out myself and where to take my life. Though things may not be exactly how I pictured them to be, I am – for all intensive purposes - still on the right track to where I want to go.

Despite the past few tumultuous weeks, there’s really nothing I can do but move forward.  So, here I am…this is my life…in progress.

Before we allow this snowstorm to pass into another series of jokes about global warming and political gridlock, there are still a few things I still don’t get:

• Why would anyone think that those winter hats with the pig-tails on them are cute after the age of 5?
• If the only place they have succeeded keeping clear of the snow this entire time is outside of METRO stations; why isn’t the guy coordinating the METRO‘s snow removal running METRO, itself? For that matter, why they heck isn’t he mayor?
• Don’t DDOT, VDOT and MDOT realize that it defeats the purpose if they plow the roads but leave 4 foot mounds of snow at the access points to the sidewalk?

Finally…

• Why, oh why do they insist on playing the “first time riding metro?” message during the morning rush hour, during a snow emergency no one but us crazy workaholics dare ride?

If you can help me answer any of those questions, please feel free to do so….

Mom: I just heard about the weather

Me: Yeah, we’re supposed to get 24″ this weekend

Mom: Are you sure you’re going to be ok? do you have enough sweaters ? do you need me to send you some?

Me: The storm is coming in at 2 PM mom, I doubt they would get here in time…

Mom: Ok, ok – I just thought I would ask