CHAPTER 8

SOCIAL BY DESIGN AND THE ADVENT OF THE POST-DIGITAL AGE

I grew up in a physical world, and I speak English. The next generation is growing up in a digital world, and they speak social.

—ANGELA AHRENDTS, Apple senior vice president

“Why does your website have so many social pieces of content embedded in it?”

“Why aren’t you following corporate protocol and using our template?”

“We want to push as many people as possible to our property, not that of others.”

“What do you mean you used a content strategy strictly on Snapchat? We need blog hits!”

SPEAK SOCIAL: THE NEW WAY TO CONNECT

These are common utterances from marketing people who don’t get it. They fail to understand that a traditional, controlled strategy in brand marketing moves too slowly today, that it involves way too much process, and that it has too little impact, unless you are dealing in investor relations and the strict SEC rules that apply there.

Today’s customers want to be able to engage with content and share it across the many places they inhabit. Trying to control the audience flow is like trying to control customer journeys. Customers are people. People can act irrationally. If you understand and accept this, you can connect with them on their terms, not on yours.

Social by design is a design strategy that encourages and facilitates conversation into an ongoing relationship-management model. Instead of onetime, interruptive messages from someone who behaves like a used car salesman, social by design by a solutions provider armed with emotional resonance is a real conversation using content, creativity, and product information that’s presented from a customer-centric point of view. In these social-by-design conversations, marketers express who we are at the same time as we learn and get feedback from our customers about how to make our products—or, better yet, the world—more inspiring.

Socially designed products put people and the culture of companies—not data, devices, customer segments, or information—at the center of the user experience. It’s a fundamental shift in the way the web and its platforms are structured. Most likely, social by design will come to define the next phase of the social web, in which we are all makers, producers, and participants.

Instead of technology, devices, or products being the selling point (as it is with operating systems like Windows 10, Android, and iOS, or applications like Word, Keynote, and Photoshop, or devices like iPhone, Galaxy, and Lumia), conversation is the selling point—the interaction with other people centering on emotional triggers. The data collected from these conversations, mostly concerning how these items fit into our everyday lives, helps encourage further product improvement and innovation.

Ongoing conversation (not just customer feedback loops once or twice a year) between you and those who use your products or who inhabit your industry space is the only true way to know what people are and are not looking for.

But let’s get real. Although social by design sounds good in theory, brands are terrible at practicing it. Cindy Alvarez, author of Lean Customer Development and director of user experience at Yammer, agrees. In one of our several informative back-and-forth email chats, Alvarez talked about how brands still don’t understand the role that social by design plays; many still employ one-way tactics that are only beneficial to their needs, not to their customers’ needs. As Alvarez added:

When my facial scrub is cheerfully saying, “Follow me on Twitter,” I just cringe. Come on, technology. We can and should learn from the offline world. People have transactional relationships and social relationships and it’s not that hard to differentiate them. . . . Social relationships aren’t necessarily “better.” Just ask someone who has grown unhappy with their hairdresser or mechanic, but can’t bring themselves to “break up” with that service provider. So what makes people want to “listen” to a brand? Sounding like a human, ugh; that’s table stakes. If that’s all you can say about your social approach, you’re not trying hard enough.

I also don’t think it’s about product quality. There are products I love and actively recommend, but don’t want a social relationship with: Blendtec, for example, or Trader Joe’s, Crazy Egg, Starwood.

There are two types of brands that I see really succeeding in building that relationship these days. I’d call them identity brands and improver brands.

Identity brands align with how we want to live and how we want others to see us. Think of Nike, and “Just Do It”—that feels like it’s all about the customer and her identity. Contrast that with the big brands that have been suffering for years: “I’m loving it” and “Open happiness”—can you even remember which brands those represent? Possibly not, because they are embarrassingly generic.

Improver brands want to help us be smarter, faster, and more attractive. These brands speak more like a helpful human guide, offering suggestions, ideas, or recommendations. They don’t operate on the level of big recognizable taglines; [instead they offer] tons of tiny little suggestions. Think of YouTube stars—Michelle Phan or the You Suck at Photoshop guy, or companies with engaging, educational blogs like OkCupid or Kissmetrics.

What Alvarez was saying demonstrates that even a fundamentally new communications design approach isn’t used very well by brands. As she noted, the best social-by-design experiences aren’t built strictly within a social network ecosystem, yet many brands still confine themselves to such thinking.

Content Marketing: The Cornerstone of a Meaningful Brand

When it comes to discussing social by design, another good person to bounce ideas off of is Julian Mitchell, who creates social-by-design content for a living. He is a senior brand writer for BuzzFeed, working out of Los Angeles. Mitchell is no ordinary marketer. In fact, I don’t think he would welcome the label. His main goal is to spark and advance conversations, elevating the way people think.

We call people like Julian “inspirers.” They don’t fit the Malcolm Gladwell description of “connectors, mavens and salesmen” described in his book Tipping Point. That book, first published in 2000, is dated now because of the social-by-design world. When asked how disruptive marketers can adopt a social-by-design philosophy, Mitchell’s answer hit at the heart of the concept:

In today’s digital climate, content marketing is the key to building a meaningful brand that really impacts people in a way that enlightens, provokes thought, shapes perspective, and ignites conversations to ultimately form real, lasting connections with people. You want to leave a powerful impression. Content marketing is the emphasis of every media plan marketers control, which is where most of the global ad dollars are being invested—content, conversations, and experiences. With that said, I think the key to effective disruptive marketing is creating compelling or provocative content, or experiences that generate content that sparks conversation. It’s abrupt, authentic, unapologetic, and driven by a specific mission or intention. Great disruptive marketing introduces a disruptive point of view that forcefully challenges the status quo. . . .

I think technology plays a pivotal role in disruptive marketing efforts, but functions as the other half that enhances the content experiences. It serves as the tool, platform, or gateway. As a result, I don’t think disruptive marketing is limited to technology. I think we’ve seen great examples with the Truth’s brilliant, yet hard-hitting antismoking campaigns, or what Beats has accomplished with their emotionally arresting Hear What You Want campaigns that deliver captivating stories from a unique and untapped point of view that aligns with real time to inspire further dialogue. Brands like Red Bull have mastered disruptive marketing through the context of extreme sports with their remarkable stunts, such as skydiving from outer space. Taking a more tech-driven angle—what Jay Z did with Samsung, launching his album in tandem with their new smartphone, releasing a content series that gave people unprecedented access into the creative process, and having the brand buy one million copies so it went platinum prior to release—changed the RIAA rules for good. Tyler, The Creator’s Cherry Bomb app, is a perfect example as well, launching out of nowhere—complete with a full album, merchandise, access, rewards, original content, and a space where fans could feel as if they owned a piece of real estate in their platform.

The Essential Component: Emotionally Intelligent Leaders

My conversation with Julian Mitchell quickly turned to a key point that was also made by Jennifer Moss earlier about company culture. That is, simply to execute a social-by-design strategy isn’t enough to bring success. Emotional intelligence in the culture of the leadership is also vital. As Mitchell noted:

The brands that will win won’t be the ones who seem like peers; they will be the brands that are our peers. I honestly think companies that will benefit most are ones that actively seek and acquire creators and curators, putting them in creative leadership positions to freely be who they are within the mission of the company. They will be smart, savvy people who live in the culture the brand thrives to connect with—that speak the language, reflect the style, and embody the attitude of the intended audience. By nature, the marketing efforts and content experiences will be organic, authentic, intriguing, and relevant; and [will] hit on those critical nuances. Anything else will be a manufactured version that falls short. Then, success will be dependent on research and studying things like neuroscience for these answers. Social media isn’t the only channel, but social media is what makes the experience real and digestible for this generation.

Talking with Mitchell did exactly what social by design is supposed to do. It sparked conversation that made me think. It asked myself this difficult question: “Am I marketing for a company whose culture I believe in?”

How about you? If your answer is no, then are you doing what you are doing simply because marketing is what you enjoy doing? Are you marketing a product or set of products that you actually use? What motivates you? The chances are that if you don’t believe in the culture of the company, you’re going to have a hard time designing experiences for the people you are trying to connect with on a creative level. In the future, that will become apparent to others—especially those you are trying your best to inspire.

Where Social by Design Is Headed

Julian Mitchell, quite the futurist when it comes to experiences, led me to ponder the future of marketing, and how social by design flies in the face of everything that conventional wisdom has taught me. Mitchell suggested:

By 2025, television on your timeline will be real—short, episodic programming that anyone can distribute directly to [his or her] followers. Studios, brands, and influencers alike will all have channels—on Snapchat, Periscope, etc. Social media will officially be social entertainment; dial-up curation [will] be the custom content experience. [At the same time,] users [will be given] real estate on the [social media] platforms they champion, so the communities [will organically] form without leaving the platform. Marketing will be a more free-form industry run by creators, curators, and free-thinking visionaries who have completely [eliminated] corporate language to tell stories and introduce formats foreign to us now. It will be about truly customizing and curating your own experience in every moment, controlled directly from your mobile device.

Video will transition into 3D and VR [virtual reality] experiences. We’ll start to see VR as a staple at live music events, such as festivals and tours—allowing people to be digitally transported to stages and unlock other experiences. Everyone will have the quality to shoot award-winning content from their mobile devices. Because that will oversaturate the space, the transition will then move into live stream video—increasing in length and exposure. I can see people eventually moving into a space where they are comfortable keeping a live feed on themselves all day.

If Mitchell’s predictions are correct, could our lives look like the one depicted in one of the most controversial documentaries ever created, We Live in Public? This film examined the idea of people trading in privacy for constant connection. The implications are immense. How does this view of the future reshape what we know as media? Will there be a need for gatekeepers anymore when everything can go direct?

If this is the world we are moving toward—forget about marketing, for a second—our entire world will be reframed, as will how we live in it.

THE NEXT WAVE: THE POST-DIGITAL AGE

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

—T. S. ELIOT,
Four Quartets,
presciently written in 1941

In 1998, MIT Media Lab cyber pundit Nicholas Negroponte pointed out in Wired magazine, “We are now in a digital age, to whatever degree our culture, infrastructure, and economy (in that order) allow us. But the really surprising changes will be elsewhere, in our lifestyle and how we collectively manage ourselves on this planet.” Indeed, we’ve been through a lot as marketers in the last half century. We’ve gone from print to radio, to television, to Big Media, to the Internet, to social and mobile, and from physical worlds to virtual worlds. Now we are about to undergo what has been dubbed the “boomerang effect,” by which we come full circle and reenter the physical and analog worlds in reaction to digital acceptance.

Exciting things will take place, thanks to the Internet of Things. In fact, in as few as ten years, 2016 marketing operations will have gone the way of the transistor radio. While conventional marketers slowly aim their marketing toys at the digital sandbox, disruptive marketers will be back to playing in the physical world!

Disruptive Marketing Comes Full Circle

It is important to understand that just as art imitates life, technology shapes both life and art. Many marketers who follow art trends are bound to see the technological world shaping our understanding of how we experience reality. Problem is, while the real world is digital now, disruptive marketers are already moving on to the “post- digital” space.

With electronic commerce now an accepted part of the business fabric, the medium of digital technology in and of itself holds less fascination for marketers. The term post-digital does not mean or aim to explain life after digital; rather, it describes the opportunity to explore how the digital age intersects with humanity.

Post-digital investigation is concerned with our rapidly evolving relationships with digital technologies. It says that being human is not just being digital. If you compare digital and post-digital, the differentiating factor is the economy of reality. By this I mean that it’s people, not simply technology, who bind relationships—even in a world overrun with technology.

In a post-digital world, disruptive marketers think of digital as one medium in their cache of tools. You need the right tool for a particular job, and disruptive marketers don’t go for the high-tech option simply because it’s available. Indeed, that digital option might not be the best way to communicate with a desired audience. The latest digital toys sometimes fail to impress, simply because people are not all that interested.

This is the essence of the post-digital era. If we look at emerging trends, surely they have a place for innovation, but they also deal with human connections and the desire to embrace a better future for the world. Marketers who understand this are more likely to take actions that get customers to connect based on experiences and education, rather than take actions designed just to get customers to buy. Disruptive marketers are as interested in people as they are in technology—probably more so than those who call themselves “digital marketers.”

Leaders who align with this post-digital Zeitgeist can tap into the true feelings of humanity as it evolves into 2020 and beyond. But who are these post-digital leaders? They represent a cross section of the world—artists, customers, business owners, academics, technologists, bureaucrats, students, Millennials, Generation Zers, Generation Xers, Generation Yers, C-Suite executives, entrepreneurs, developers. Everyone.