- We live in a time when emotions are high.
Because they're publicly shared
and displayed in social media.
In essence we've opened up Pandora's Box
filled with emotions both positive
and negative for all to see.
And regardless of the sentiment
of the emotions shared,
sharing our feelings with each other
builds connection which equates to relationships.
It's no wonder why social marketing has struck a chord.
But if our society is emotionally run,
why do we still primarily rely on logic
to get everything done?
Logic is the matchstick that gives us
a platform to strike up opinions and conversations.
Which gives us creative input from the crowd.
It's more rooted in fact and data,
so perhaps as humans it makes us feel safe.
Backing up what we share to appear more believable.
Certainly if it weren't for research and data,
we would live in one very opinionated society.
While there is no definitive list of spectrums of emotions.
One popular person, the emotional expert: Paul Ekman,
contains six emotions including fear, anger, sadness
disgust, surprise and joy.
These six have been found in every society worldwide.
And have been shown to be identifiably
by people regardless of upbringing,
culture or experience.
All businesses, whether they are small, medium or large,
need to be aware of the following emotions
they are evoking as it has a direct reflection
of the emotional response they want to evoke.
In fact, I would suggest mapping these emotions
to your content plan.
Here are the six emotional styles
of sharing applied to social.
The first one is fear.
The function of fear is to get us
out of dangerous situations or into them.
I know many people who are simply not
on social media because they see social as an intrusion
and fear the repercussions of being social.
I predict that this will change over time
as millennials grow up with a new set
of social barriers moving forward.
The second one is anger.
Anger is emotional.
It's an emotional response related
to one's psychological interpretation
of having been threatened.
Some people are simply waiting on the sidelines to argue.
Others take it farther.
Becoming haters or trolls.
Anger is often one-sided unless
it's accepted by both parties.
In which case, it's an endless quagmire of opinion slinging.
Often only ending by out fatiguing the other person.
The next one is sadness.
This is an emotional pain associated with
or characterized by feelings of disadvantage,
loss, despair, helplessness and sorrow.
As in our everyday lives bad things happen to good people.
These experiences are shared quite often
and typically draw an amazing support system.
There's solace in sharing our vulnerabilities and pain.
And this can be quite healing if not made
a crutch or part of one's social identity.
The next one is disgust.
Disgust is an emotional response of revulsion.
Something considered offensive or unpleasant.
Social forms of disgust come in many flavors.
Often in times in the form of over-sharing
or not thinking through who is reading your content.
And others simply don't care when they share.
Or who they might hurt in sharing.
As are the many decisions in life,
we can take part in these discussions
or simply move on.
The next one is joy.
The function of joy is to indicate what we've done
or witnessed something that is enhancing
to our well being and to encourage us
and others to aspire to greatness in the future.
It's not an accident that Facebook built
your profile as a timeline of your life.
To share with others all your joyful experiences.
It feels great to share joyous occasions
and make us feel good as humans.
To see others experiencing joy.
Surprise.
The purpose of surprise is to indicate
that something unexpected has occurred
to prepare us and those around us to deal with it.
The element of surprise when done right
can be a marketer's best tactic.
I'll say it in one word: Apple.
It's important that we also understand
as people running and representing brands,
that when your emotional response
resonates authentically, mirroring with those
most likely who will take place.
The act of mirroring anyone's body language
is a way to bond and build
understanding with other humans.
It's a powerful tool that we use instinctively
without even being aware of it.
The most obvious forms of mirroring
are yawning and smiling.
When you see someone yawn or if you see
someone read the word: yawn.
You're likely to yawn immediately
or during the next 30 seconds.
This same concept has been proven to work online.
An example of mirroring was reported by the AV Club
in January of 2012 where Facebook adjusted
its newsfeed algorithm for several
hundred thousand users to see what
you see in your newsfeed affects
your emotional state as a part of a scientific study.
The resulting paper was published
to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
or PNAS.
Which found that people mirror
the positive or negative emotions
that their friends expressed in their posts.
All without the aid of non-verbal cues like
body language or tone of voice.
Creepy, right?
But still, the results are interesting.
To pull this off, Facebook engineers
tweaked what six hundred thousand users
saw in their newsfeeds so they saw
more posts that expressed positive emotions,
while others saw more posts that
conveyed negative feelings.
The result: people actually responded in kind.
Those who saw more positive posts responded more positively.
While those who saw more negative posts
responded with negative feelings of their own.
The researchers, they called this an effect
of emotional contagion.
Because they purported to show
that our friend's words on our Facebook newsfeed
directly affected our own mood.
You can check this Facebook alters algorithm
for emotional research and I've dropped a link below.
So on a personal note I think it's ironic
that the very study that sought out
to logically prove emotions affect human behavior
in social, actually caused more emotional
reactions than that which it measured.
Thank you guys so much for sharing this time with me.
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Thank you so much for your watching.
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Cheers.
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