For full effect.. this post should be read whilst listening to Morrisey singing ‘The more you ignore me, the closer I get’

The More You Ignore Me…

The recent case from Brasil of the Brastemp customer who created his own one man social media campaign against the company for their poor level of service and the length of time he was left waiting for the company to resolve a problem with a product is just one of many examples from across the globe of where irate consumers are turning to social media to take their complaints.

Enough has been written about the Brastemp example and the phenomena by which mobs turn social media into their primary route for exacting revenge on unsympathetic companies. Little has been written however abut just why we are hardwried as consumers to sense such strong resntment when we feel ignored. However, a new piece of research from the USA may just help to explain why consumers turn to such extreme measures.

Given that recent research from Deloitte here in Brasil shows that one of the great problems faced by brands is not only making consumers feel wanted online it may also serve as a warning to brands about the potential implications of what happens when consumers feel that no-one is listening to them.

Professor Kip Williams has conducted a range of experiments at the psychology lab at Purdue University, focused on measuring aggressive behaviour which ostracism can stir up in someone given the silent treatment. Speaking on the BBC Radio programme, ‘All in the Mind’ he discusses why as social creatures our brains are wired to sense rejection and being ignored. The experiments also shows that even when people feel rejected or ignored by computer generated communications (in tests which involve game playing), they still demonstrate high levels of resentment. It can trigger very deep, low-level and primitive response –  we don’t thnk too much – we just care and we react. Interestingly our first reaction may be to raise our antenna and seek to please the individual or organisation which is ignoring us – however with continued exclusion or rejection this tends to quickly lead to a loss of self esteem, and a lack of control.

This is explained by the fact that as social beings we have evolved through feeling part of social communications networks and connected to other people – and thus when these connections break down – naturally enough – we respond.

There are other social animals who may even die when they are ignored. For humans this response is less extreme but this sense of lack of control can become aggressive. In one of the experiments, people who have been ostracized or ignored are allowed to add hot chilli sauce to food of the person who has excluded them. The victims on average add 5 times more hot sauce than in normal situations.

All of this should be taken on-board by companies as they increasingly seek to be part of on-going communications and engagement building with consumers in social media. It’s all fine and good to try and start relationship building with people, but what happens if you can’t maintain that relationship and people feel excluded or ignored. Sure for most they will just ignore you back, but not all. Recent research from Deloitte here in Brasil highlighted this dilemna. The survey conducted with over 300 companies shows that social media is being far more as a media of publication than for maintaining ongoing communications with consumers.  Success in social media is at present more likely to be evaluated in terms of number of users and recommendations as opposed to considering the level of satisfaction with ongoing communications. Discussions with students at my FAAP course have also highlighted the fact that one of the greatest complaints we have as consumers is when companies establish channels of communication but fail to respond. This is also born out by a study of participants at Campus Party in 2011 where one of the most constitent criticisms of Brazilian brands in social media is the slow or non-existent response to customer complaints.

The moral of the story… listen to more Morrisey if you really want to understand how to manage your customer relations. And if you want to start a conversation with your consumers… try not to ignore them.

A new piece of research undertaken by academics in the USA has identified the phenomenon of regional accents in the way we Tweet. The study is great, not just because serious measured research of Twitter behaviour is extremely limited but also because it throws up some interesting broader questions about the interaction between communications on and offline. TWR undertook a massive project of twitter monitoring during the World Cup reading hundreds of thousands of Tweets in Portugues. One of the most interesting things about undertaking the project was observing the different language uses amongst different ages and between men and women as well as the different regional accents and use of specific words depending on region. So we firmly believe that the processes identified in the USA have relevance here in Brasil too. How about you and your own tweeting – do you observe differences amongst your friends and followers? Lets us know here or tweet us …

I dont know about you but it seems like a long long time ago that the World Cup finished. Just about enough time for us to start to feel nostalgic and forgive Dunga, Rooney and Ronaldo for ruining the months of June and July… OK maybe not. It is however an apt time to announce the launch of the Copa 140 book. Well not quite yet but sometime very soon. During the tournament we were tracking, interacting and laughing at we believe over 500,000 – yes half a million Tweets from Brasileiros during the tournament. It gave us a rare glimpse at the life of Brasilians during this special month. If you go here and check out the favourites, by scrolling down you can see all of the Tweets which we favourited over the course of the month – this is of the course the best 2,000 for the original thousand and thousands which we were following. It reads like something of a reverse digital documentary of the nation and its experiences during the World Cup. The book has allowed us to categorise and add some thoughts on how Brasil was Tweeting its Copa…Unique??? We think so.. if you know of any other similar examples we’d love to hear about them. if you are interested in knowing more please get in touch.

Contudo… o que achamos mais interessante de ser notado, foram as reações de alguns dos twitter e twitteretes:

pablosnr: RT @baunilha: @governosp no twitter!- interessante.. vejamos oq eles estão aprontando. acho que deveria ter twits especiais sobre corrupção

Pangos: @governosp Sejam bem vindos representantes.

about 1 hour ago from web · Reply · View Tweet

gustavoramos: @governosp Vocês deveriam promover mais a interação com o cidadão aqui e deixar de lado as propagandas. Isso eu vejo no site.

edumg: José Serra andou lendo a Época @governosp

As Twitter goes increasingly mainstream in the UK, as witnessed in its increasing use in radio phone-ins on the BBC it looks like its about to do the same here in Brazil. Or is it? This weeks Epoca magazine devoted it’s cover to the rise of the phenomenon here in Brazil. However, we’re asking a few of Brazil’s most prolific Twitter addicts what this means for the application here…. more to come shortly

…oh and as if you don’t yet know what Twitter is…

1. Social network and blogging sites are now the 4th most popular activity on the Internet

Social network and blogging sites are now the 4th most popular
activity on the Internet (overcoming personal email) with 67% global reach as to December 2008. That is 5% more of what they attracted a year ago.

The strongest growth comes from Germany (much due to Facebook launching a German language interface in March 2008) now reaching 51% of Germans online compared to 39% a year ago (12% increase). Large growth has also occurred in the UK, Spain, Italy and Switzerland (about 10% growth in each country).
The US growth at this time was minor (2.6% growth) suggesting a saturation of the online social activity of the US population.

2. Due to Facebook’s success – time spent on ‘member community’ sites grow three times the rate of overall Internet growth

The overall time spent online globally increased by 18% between December 2007 and December 2008. In the same period, however, the amount of time spent on ‘Member Community’ sites rose by 63% to 45 billion minutes; and on Facebook by a massive 566% – from 3.1 billion minutes to 20.5 billion. Facebook’s time is so high due to having the highest average time per person (three hours 10 minutes).

In most of the countries monitored the share of time accounted for by ‘Member Communities’ has more than doubled. In Switzerland, share of time has tripled from 3% to 9.3%.
A year ago ‘Member Communities’ accounted for one in every 15 online minutes globally – now it accounts for one in every 11. In Brazil alone, ‘Member Communities’ accounts for almost one in every 4 minutes. In the UK they now account for one in every 6 minutes (up from every 13 minutes a year ago) and in Italy one in every 7 (up from one in 14 a year ago).

3. Facebook has driven older people to be socially involved online:

While social networks started amongst the younger audience, today’s audiences are becoming broader and older. This shift has primarily been driven by Facebook, successfully opened opportunities of social networking to a much wider audience.

The report is somewhat akin to a soft ‘moral panic’ stating that young people who are kings of the digital age are costly to keep, pragmatic, lacking idealism and generally lost or confused in a world of endless choice, much of which is bought on by their being endlessly online. The internet and social media is in part blamed for young people’s lack of reflexivity and a ‘look at me’ culture, meanwhile the growth of social contacts via Orkut has fuelled increased party attendance and this is blmed for increased drinking and drug taking amongst Brazilians.The article however also seeks to criticise teens for having lost the sense of revolution that their parents exhibited, worrying only about getting into stable employment and receiving a good salary.
The shift in power relations due to adoption of technologies is also seen as a factor behind how young people now increasingly control household spending behaviour and the fact that young people are now 5 times more expensive than 30 years ago.
The article which starts by drawing comparison to Holden Caulfield’s crisis of 2 generations ago ends with a list of recommendations to parents on how to raise their children with reference to such issues as – how to get them to answer the phone, or stop exposing too much of their lives online!

If you would like to know more about our own extensive and less sensationalist research report into Young Lives across South America – please click here