Social media as speed dating
Jason is Managing Director of PHD North in Manchester, and is nicely fostering the ‘Feeding The Puppy’ spirit there… he recently attended the ‘Science of Success’ seminar in Manchester featuring Malcolm Gladwell & Daniel Goleman, and has come away with four main thoughts inspired by what he heard there…
…’can I share them on Feeding The Puppy?’ asks Jason. You certainly can, Mr Spencer…
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2. Social media as speed dating
If you are going to go speed dating, don’t just talk about yourself. The same goes for brands.
Daniel Goleman cited the greatest Jewish philosopher, Martin Buber, and his I and Thou Theory that there are 2 types of human relationship:
I/it relationships, where the I considers the person they are interacting with as an object and talks at them;
I/you relationships, where the I empathises and listens to the other person.
Now it does not take a genius to work out which strategy will yield the most success if you go speed dating, as Goleman pointed out.
But this got me thinking that social media is maybe just like speed dating.
If you are inundated with lots of brands vying for your attention, you will be drawn towards the brand that treats you as an individual not an object. The brand that stands out because it listens rather than just talks.
Without social media, every brand would be engaging in an I/it strategy and whilst they would get through the highest number of its, they would make the least “connections”.
If we want to get phone numbers and meet again, hey maybe even go out on a few dates and have some sort of meaningful relationship, we must listen and ask questions from the very start.
So I/you beats I/it every time.
For the record, I have never been speed dating. But I have a friend who has.
If you have been speed dating, it would be great to know if this analogy works for you (and if we can stretch it a little further)…
(Read Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence for more on all this)
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