Getting Used by Social Media Marketing?

Back in August 2008, Peter Kim blogged about “How to set an ego trap” on his beingpeterkim.com site. He received lots of feedbacks from both regular readers and the “influentials”, as Guy Kawasaki calls them.

Mr. Kim wrote, “In a nutshell, social technologies use game mechanics to get users hooked on participation.  People often get addicted to ego-stroking system feedback, until they can temper their usage (addiction?)” He gave a few examples to illustrate how well-known bloggers have used social networking for viral marketing and promotion, for both products and services. These can be read on his blog so I won’t repeat them here. For each example Mr. Kim observed some simple yet important characteristics. In one, he noted, “So why did it work?  The offer was simple.  It was personalized.” In other, “So why did it work?  The offer was limited.  It was relevant to the bloggers and their readers.” And in the third example, “Why did it work?  Game mechanics – competition and a somewhat objective comparison scale…” Mr. Kim ended the blog with the some suggestions on how to set an effective “ego trap” with your own offer:

• Keep it simple.
• Make it scarce.
• Personalize it.
• Use numbers.
• Appeal to the head…and the heart.

So now you may ask, “Ego trap or just human nature?” I would say probably both. It’s all about feeling good and important. We’re all humans, and many would agree that feeling good and important are two of human’s strongest straits – they’ve helped build empires and cause wars in our history. It’s all about self-importance. That’s why face-to-face networking works. That’s also why social networking works.

It’s no surprise we’ll use social media and networking to our benefits, and we’ll be glad to be used by the medium. So here’s a question: We’ve done face-to-face networking in older times. We’re now doing social networking in the Internet age. How do you suppose we’ll network next? Let your imagination flows.

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Tags: blog, ego trap, Marketing, networking in the internet age, social networking, social Social Media, viral, Viral Marketing