And you thought Facebook was just for getting a date! Stanford Professor BJ Fogg, who is writing a book about the psychology of Facebook, believes the social networking platform is revolutionary because it takes the dynamics of one-to-one persuasion and scales it up to millions. He explains why this changes the whole game of politics and business, why marketing as we know it will cease to exist, and why the notion of a target market will become perpetually beta.
Why study the psychology of Facebook?
I've long been interested in how technology can persuade people and how it can change people's attitudes and behaviors. Facebook has emerged as, I think, as the most effective persuasive technology ever.
You think Facebook is the most powerful persuasive tool in human history -- including radio, telegraph, TV, and all those other things?
Facebook is the precursor of something I'm calling mass interpersonal persuasion. That is a new phenomenon and the most important thing to happen in the world of persuasion since the advent of the radio over 100 years ago. Radio changed the game for persuasion because it allowed a message to be broadcast to thousands and millions of people, which was previously not possible. TV was an extension of that, but I don't think it was the big leap that radio was.
Facebook takes very strong interpersonal influence dynamics -- the way people persuade each other face-to-face in small groups with peer pressure, reciprocity, flattery -- and allows those to be used on a mass scale because your social networks are built in. Friends influence friends, who influence friends, and that keeps rippling out. They can reach people very quickly for very little cost and ordinary people can set these in motion. It doesn't require a big broadcasting company or a big PR campaign. If you get the right message in the right way, you'll effect millions of people. Facebook has been the best platform for that, but I think in the future it will be commonplace.
Couldn't you say the same thing about other platforms like MySpace?
I think the other platforms will get there. I think Facebook is leading because it has a high trust culture. Unlike MySpace, where you can be linked to people you don't know or find out they may not even be real people, in Facebook you generally know them or you have some certainty they're real people. Persuasion hinges on the credibility of the source. The advantage of Facebook is the source credibility is very high.
What's an example of Facebook as a persuasive force?
In the political sphere, you have the fairly prominent example last fall of a group rallying support and raising awareness for the Burmese monks. I have to admit, once I saw that come across my newsfeed -- and I saw seven of my friends had joined the group -- I really woke up to that issue and started noticing it in the newspaper.
How do you see these persuasion dynamics playing out in business?
A lot of our exposure to services and products is now going to be socially mediated. It's going to be very hard to create a centralized broadcasting message about a brand or product. That's gone. Organizations need to understand how to get distribution within these social networks. How do we get friends to tell friends? How do you create new viral videos? How do you create groups that people are going to join? How do you create events that people will invite other people to? That's where mass interpersonal persuasion comes in. Through the newsfeed and my social network, interesting stuff now comes to me; I don't have to go searching for it.
This brings us to the idea of the long tail and niche communities. Do you see marketing drilling down into these niches in a much deeper way?
As a brand, you can worry about all these micro niches and micro markets and the long tail, but I think at the end of the day you're not going to have enough resources to do that. You have to focus on creating a spectacular product or service, and your market will find you. The people it resonates with will share it with others, and it will be distributed. It's a big leap of faith for marketers to think they're not going to have an active role in marketing. Once you figure out where it's going, then you can start putting resources into continuing to go into that market or expanding into others.
So marketing is going to become more user-driven?
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Recent Comments | 14 Total
May 19, 2008 at 12:18pm by Jonathan Gilbert
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The grass grows deep on the road to The Better Mousetrap Company for want of better marketing.
May 19, 2008 at 12:30pm by Gene Lu
Great article Kermit!
Another noteworthy article about the success of online communities (in this case, Flickr) can be found at: http://alistapart.com/articles/fromlittlethings.
It's interesting to compare and contrast the approach and the results of both online communities.
May 19, 2008 at 1:49pm by sean comeaux
BJ is on to something for the most part. That is a very good analysis.
@ Kermit: "And you thought Facebook was just for getting a date!" What? Who thought FB was just for getting a date? How out of the loop are you? Sorry buddy, no one's thinking that except for paranoid old folks who watch too much unsubstantiated investigative reporting. In fact, that is another major difference between FB and MS. Facebook is an online extension of the school and college social groups and friends. People aren't logging on to FB searching "for hot chicks/guys" they don't know to add, flirt with and hook up with. Not even close. In fact it doesn't work like that at all. Much like linkedIn unless you know someone you don't/can't add them, that's not how Facebook is designed.
My advice? Get a clue, then get your writing assignment.
May 19, 2008 at 2:44pm by larke paul
I believe the "killer app" part of Facebook is the speed at which information is consumed and disseminated. In the "old days", an individual would have to attend an event (physically, not virtually), be inspired, call or even send letters to friends, and rally support through a multi-step, multi-day process. Facebook eliminates the steps--if you have the Facebook Blackberry application, information transmission is literally seconds away. By nature, people want to be "in the know". Interesting how Google is making social networking tools available to anyone--thousands of groups, on top of those that currently exist, are right around the corner. A person's Facebook main page is like a personal version of People magazine. We're not all super-stars, but our friends can read about us as if we were written up in a supermarket tabloid; however, most people are truly making difference and recruiting people to participate, via Facebook.
May 20, 2008 at 3:17am by Kishore Dharmarajan
Someone has said that the next revolutions won't happen on the streets or the podium. It's going to happen on Facebook. How true it feels, after reading this excellent article.
www.kishoredharmarajan.com
May 20, 2008 at 7:49pm by mc_secular Secular
May 20, 2008 at 7:50pm by mc_secular Secular
The next revolution will happen on Facebook? Are you serious?!
May 27, 2008 at 2:41pm by Peter Koning
If you're going to create something and "just put it out there", I think the first thing you still need to do is survey your market.
You can actually use Facebook to do market research, e.g. use the Lexicon service or just type in your keywords into the search box and see what groups and applications there are on that topic, and what they're talking about.
Peter
http://www.facebookpayday.com
May 29, 2008 at 12:40am by Clayton Johnston
Facebook is the best free tool that I have ever had the pleasure of using in 8 years of trading online...
You have hit the nail on the head with the Trust Factor BJ Fogg & Kermit... No longer can people hide behind, Corporate Identies, Companies and WebSites, Profile Names or Avatars... Facebook has given the internet the missing part of the puzzle in Human Interaction Online, Trust....
We can now choose who we friend and talk too on a daily basis.... The ability to find likeminded people is second to none.... Thanks to facebook I have genuine friends in over 150 countries now and the speed of information to find genuine people is amazing.... I rarely use google to find what I need now, Facebook has Quality People, Quality Products and Quality Information..... Facebook has ensured people become transparent and real with other people...
In the early days I went to Facebook, Now Facebook Comes to me and it's all automated... Love It.... Now I can stay Connected with thousands of friends at lightspeed... Who Needs Instant Messaging when I can stay in touch in my own time when it suits via facebook and share my life... The Internet really has come of age and Social Networking is king !!
Remember " THE PEOPLE BUILT FACEBOOK " Facebook didn't build us... The Freedom to interact unconditionally, who needs the News and Papers when u have real people !!
" Many Minds Make Lightwork "
Clayton J
www.zenergenius.com
Founder
May 30, 2008 at 12:29pm by Susanna Schick
"You can't say, Oh, now we're going to have you learn to make quilts. They're not on Facebook to make quilts."
damn. no wonder I can't get anyone to join my quilt group. ;-)
but the big question is, why can't I "facebook" this article? I love sharing interesting articles with my friends, and Fast Company is one of the few publications I read which doesn't let me do that. I am not going to waste my time subscribing to digg, etc. when I can just post stuff to facebook. get with it, FC.
September 26, 2009 at 12:02am by joe lee
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October 26, 2009 at 4:53am by Somchai Yhai
Great interview,
I like comparison between facebook and myspace in BJ Fogg's perspective.
Somchai Yhai
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November 3, 2009 at 9:51am by andrew zverev
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November 4, 2009 at 1:24pm by Taras Kolodny
The next revolution will happen on Facebook? Are you serious?!
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