Just Seven Things

The Power of Social Recommendation I

A small planting of a seed of a set of thoughts. Again, crystallised by Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s marvellous Fooled by Randomness – see ‘Taleb’ search link here.

It started when I read a comment that (paraphrasing, I think – short on time to pull up the page reference): ‘there is no scientific evidence that can convince them ore potently than a sincere and emotional testimonial’

That people patronize what other people like to do. Actors who ‘become known by some parts of the public because he is known by other parts of the public’

At Madgex, our brilliant Creative Director, created a social networking tool called Backnetwork, for networking at events. We did some consultancy for a major client and from our research found that at the heart of a successful (online) network was a ‘hook’ and and an ‘application’. So effectively a reason for going there and a reason for staying there. Amongst the most successful ‘applications’ (as defined above vs. software application) was to explore the recommendations of others. 

How long have you spent clicking through Amazon recommendation links: those who bought, also bought….. If you’ve been onto Last.fm, you can get truly lost in stereophonic woods (all the time enjoying the experience)

The book, Marketing Metaphoria by Gerald and Lindsay Zaltman would reference the deep metaphor of ‘Connection’ – links to my related posts on marketing Metaphoria here. 

NLP could offer up explanations around shifting values and beliefs about something. A new ‘as if’ is possible, suggested and recommended by another. I underline recommendation because of the trust element as I believe this gives us the start of a clue.

We want to trust. Yes, to feel ‘connected’. Yes, to believe. But also we trust the person recommending. That they have bothered to recommend something, paying the contract principle as they do. Their weight of opinion is far stronger than that of the company selling the product. Do we trust the professional reviewers? It’s their job, but are they us?

To be continued (sorry about the post-baby lack of time…)