IPA Social - Principle 06 - Being Authentic Not Persuasive

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So, on October 6th the IPA are running an event (at which I'll be talking) to have a conversation around what social really means for our industry. In the build up to the event, I've been working with a great bunch of likeminded folk from across our industry who all had opinions they wanted to express, and we have worked up ten principles to start the conversation. This introduction (written by Amelia) gives the proper context:

Social Media is a conversation. That seems to be one thing that we can all agree on.

But given that Social Media is a rather noisy and opinionated conversation, what value do we think we will have by adding our voices to it?

We are not Social Media gurus. In fact we are rather sceptical of people who claim they are. We are simply 10 people from across a wide range of communications disciplines in the UK and the US who would like to share some thoughts. Thoughts that have either been bugging us or inspiring us, thoughts that we believe could form some of the building blocks for succesful Social campaigns. We came together to respond to and add our voices to some work that the IPA had done earlier in the year.

We have each defined a Principle which we feel is important in this Social world. You will find each principle up here but they are also on our individual blogs where we will be curating the conversation which we hope they will generate. Please do get involved, maybe you think these principles don't apply, are there better ones? Are there changes that you would like to make? Are there examples that you could add to help illustrate them? The only thing that we ask is that as part of the advertising and communications community that you become part of the conversation. After all the more opinions that are being shared and built on, the more interesting and stronger the outcome. At least that's what we are hoping.

Thank you in advance.

The IPA have created a hub for all ten principles, along with a fantastic summary of the big picture written by Mark Earls, all of which you can find here. Each of us is writing about a single principle and encouraging as much debate through our own blogs, and around the #IPASocial hashtag on twitter, and the event itself:

1. People not consumers – Mark Earls

2. Social agenda not business agenda – Le’Nise Brothers

3. Continuous conversation not campaigning – John V Willshire

4. Long term impacts not quick fixes – Faris Yakob

5. Marketing with people not to people – Katy Lindemann

6. Being authentic not persuasive – Neil Perkin

7. Perpetual beta – Jamie Coomber

8. Technology changes, people don’t – Amelia Torode

9. Change will never be this slow again – Graeme Wood

10. Measurement – Asi Sharabi

These ten principles are just a starting point; provokers of conversation, thoughts, ideas… an invitation to you (yes, YOU) to join in. Why?  Our aim with this project is to move the debate beyond simply the theoretical, and into the practical; examples of approaches that have worked, and which have not.  What does success look like?  What do you need to do first?

We believe that by sharing information and case studies around ’social communications’ we will all, from the largest agency to the nimblest freelancer, from the most traditional client to the youngest start-up, benefit from this open source of knowledge.

So please join the debate by leaving your thoughts around the principle I'm writing about in the comments below, and see the other conversation starters here.

IPA Social, principle 06: Being Authentic, Not Persuasive

Social marketing earns, not buys attention so have an opinion, be true to what you say, be of value, be open - above all be human #IPASocial

As 'markets become conversations' customer relationships and advertising models are changing for good. Passive consumption becomes active interaction. Monologue becomes dialogue. Control becomes collaboration.

Customers are empowered, well informed, connected. Companies are becoming more transparent whether they like it or not.

It's an environment in which the balance of effective communication shifts from being less about interruption to more about participation, less about delivering a message to more about being part of a conversation, less about what you say to people and more about what people are saying about you.

It's an environment, which operates to social principles - creating not subtracting value, serving a larger purpose than your own, being useful, facilitating.

It's an environment in which the more human elements matter - having a point of view, being true to yourself and what you say, being open, honest, transparent. Ford use social media to (in the words of Scott Monty) "humanize the Ford brand and put consumers in touch with Ford employees", and regularly reach out to bloggers for feedback and to encourage the spread of positive word of mouth. Zappos believe that their "culture is their brand" and use social media to create touchpoints throughout every area of their business and ensure customer service isn't just a department, it’s the entire company.

Authenticity is the currency that encourages trust, involvement, engagement. Authenticity is what turns an audience into a following.

Comments

[Phil Dearson]

First!

All good, sir. I like the use of the word "human".

I think a wiki might be a bit more humane (see what I did there) than 10 separate blogs but I see what you're doing. It's like a cocktail party in a bloody enormous warehouse. Lots of walking and spilling of drinks.

[neilperkin]

Thanks for the comment Phil - nice analogy :-)
Your right about the human thing of-course (saw you'd suggested it over on John Willshire's post). And it's a good thought about the wiki - there's been some discussion around the importance of sharing case studies so that could well be the best way of doing it...

[John]

You're all preaching to the converted here, but one question nags at me. Is this really about social media or has the pervasiveness of the internet merely revealed that the advertising emperor had no clothes and should have been observing these ten principles all along? Don't let this become siloed.

[neilperkin]

Its a great point John - I certainly feel that there's a broad belief behind all this that social media is not just another channel. The context of the IPA event may be around advertising but I think many of the things that are being talked about involve cultural as well as behavioural change. Whether advertising should have been doing this all along is another question, but its good that the IPA is engaging in the conversation in this way. I hope you're coming to the gig on the 6th - be good to see you there :-)

[andy]

I'm in John's camp. I still have a niggle about the term social media and the way we talk about it unearthing magical new values.

Forgive my pedantic-semantics but isn't social media actually media that has stopped being anti-social.
Isn't it more about transparency causing us to strip away the BS-buildup rather than the revelation of new values?

The principals that come with social media are mostly principals that people have had for a long time. We're now applying them to marketing as though we've never seen them before:

Be nice, do things properly, add value... didn't our parents teach us that stuff when we were nippers?

Sorry. Perhaps I'm just fatigued with the entire 'social media' conversation.

I sometimes think the interesting stuff is obstructed by the obvious and although I don't disagree with it, I find a little amusement in a conclusion that says "be human". Makes you wonder if were actually experts at social media before we knew it was coming.

[neilperkin]

Hi Andy - thanks for the great comment. I think you make a valid point - I don't like the term Social Media either (and have said as much before http://bit.ly/13y3pK ). But I do think that in the era of mass marketing and mass communication business might have lost some of its human side. Driven not least by the ability to reach millions of people at one time with the same message, to standardise and automate for efficiency, and in the desire for control and consistency. Social marketing, or comms or media or whatever we call it, could well be the biggest opportunity for business to get some of its humanity back. And yes, that probably means going back to practices that whilst not new, have maybe been forgotten. This probably feels obvious to people who have been talking about this for a while, but perhaps its not for everyone.
So...I guess that's a roundabout way of saying I don't disagree with what you're saying...
Thanks again for the contribution

[andy]

Thanks for taking that the right way, Neil. I guess I am one of the people that has been talking about it a while ;)

I think my niggle comes to a head when we talk about 'authenticity'. My my definitions (I'm a purist) 'authentic marketing' is an oxymoron. As long as businesses want to make money, their actions will be anything but authentic. They will instead continue to be strategies masterminded to get money out of their customers.

Arguably, when we talk about returning to good, wholesome, human values, we really mean 'creating the illusion of these values' because ultimately the friendliest, most open social media campaign will conclude with a board meeting where the brand managers look at their sales figures.

Maybe, rather than 'be nice', the mantra should be 'play nice'. It has a slightly dark subtext, but maybe it's more accurate.

I'll stop clogging up your comments now ;)

[ChrisQ]

OK - so here's some (justified) pedantry for you Neil. You say Social media's about being authentic and not persuasive. Well, Aristotle would disagree - as he (and I) would argue that in fact authenticity is a major part of persuasion, and not distinct from it.

In his seminal work "ars rhetorica" Aristotle identified 3 key principles of the "art of persuasion":
- Pathos - appeal to the emotion of the audience
- Ethos - a sense of credibility and “moral competence”
- Logos - good logical structure

Authenticity very firmly lies within the realms of "ethos" - a characteristic of ensuring a rhetorician remains believable - and ensures he's persuasive.

I just posted a quick post about this here which fleshes things out a little: http://www.rubberrepublic.com/blog/

[anon]

'Technlogy changes people don't' should be credited to the woman who wrote it (and the guy who made it famous.....)

Hugh McLeod making a cartoon about a VERY astute Deborah Schultz quote

http://www.deborahschultz.com/

Rule #11 - Be transparent and honest

[neilperkin]

Hi Andy - hmmm, interesting thought but personally I'm not sure that if a business wants to make money it can't be authentic. The context that I have in mind when I think about this is about organisations being true to what they say in their communications (which so often isn't the case), about the customer's experience living up to the big words, about expectations being exceeded, about great experience and great service marrying up with all that bluster, about a culture that allows transparency and honesty to flourish. None of which is new of-course, but rarely do we experience it (sadly). I think people recognise that businesses need to make money - for me it's more about how they go about doing that. Thanks for the comment.

Chris - wow, can't really argue with Aristotle. I take your point, but I also think there is plenty of marketing out there that relies on more overt forms of persuasion (like frequency of message). Interesting point though.

Anon - thanks for pointing that out. The Hugh Macleod cartoon you mention is actually used in the post that references the quote. I was aware it was originally a Deborah Schultz quote but as it's not attributed, will mention that to the IPA

[andy]

"organisations being true to what they say in their communications"
Yes. I'm with you 100%

I suppose the authenticity thing is a semantic argument and maybe not a very useful one. For me it just carries with it some uncomfortable connotations considering how all this thinking will go on to be applied.

P.s. I can't argue with Aristotle either!
Keep up the good work Neil.

[neilperkin]

Cheers Andy. And thanks again for the useful comments