{"id":4321,"date":"2012-08-29T03:31:34","date_gmt":"2012-08-29T03:31:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/?p=4321"},"modified":"2012-09-02T18:56:25","modified_gmt":"2012-09-02T18:56:25","slug":"are-your-customers-lying-to-you-how-can-you-really-tell-what-theyre-thinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/2012\/08\/are-your-customers-lying-to-you-how-can-you-really-tell-what-theyre-thinking\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Your Customers Lying to You? How Can You REALLY Tell What They\u2019re Thinking?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In\u00a0John Nosta\u2019s<\/a>Thinkology<\/em>\u00a0blog post,\u00a0\u201cThe Fundamental Marketing Dilemma: Language is a Lie,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0he discusses books like Malcom Gladwell\u2019sBlink<\/em>\u00a0and Tor Norretranders\u2019s\u00a0The User Illusion,\u00a0<\/em>which explore the ideas of how we perceive things. These authors assert that our first impressions are processed not by conscious thought and language, but by much faster processes that are rooted in our reptilian and mammalian brains.<\/p>\n

Nosta\u2019s take is that language is really \u201ca corrupted surrogate for what\u2019s REALLY happening.\u201d He says that maybe we shouldn\u2019t be asking our customers what they\u2019re thinking. Maybe we would get more and\/or better information by trying to measure direct neural function such as eye tracking, facial coding and other biometrics.<\/p>\n

What about surveys and focus groups? Bunk! According to Nosta, people\u2019s thought processes pollute their first impressions about a product or service to the point that the language expression we get in response to asking a question isn\u2019t reliable\u2014and yet 90% of market research focuses on verbal communication, while verbal accounts for only 23% of most communication.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s a marketer to do?<\/p>\n

Now while I didn\u2019t really like\u00a0Blink<\/em>, and still think Gladwell, no matter how brilliant, was just cashing in on the success of\u00a0Tipping Point,<\/em>\u00a0I get the whole \u201cfirst impression\u201d thing and how it can shape your interactions going forward. In fact, I think that\u2019s why images are so very important, and why a site like Pinterest is taking the social media world by storm, and why Facebook paid a cool $1Billion for Instagram.<\/p>\n

This power of visual medium is much more evident in social, where reaction is faster (and often more visceral) than in traditional marketing. That\u2019s the reason more people hit the \u201clike\u201d button than actually take the time to comment or even share a post. It can be done in that \u201cblink\u201d period\u2014rather than taking the time to process through language centers.<\/p>\n

Think about it. Why is YouTube the second largest search engine? Why do people react more on Facebook to images and videos than any other type of post? It\u2019s pretty simple\u2026 we connect more in the \u201cblink\u201d of an eye to what we see rather than what we read. It stays with us longer and allows us to process in so many ways. That is also why creating short memes or one-liners of 140 characters or less (yes Tweets) can be so powerful\u2026 easy for people to process, remember, and share.<\/p>\n

So as a marketer, how can you turn that to your advantage? What visual or auditory tools could you use to get people to connect and react on a subconscious level\u2014rather than the need for them to \u201cprocess\u201d first and then take an action? I find this fascinating and think there is so much opportunity for this in in the social realm.<\/p>\n

A lot of companies are springing up in the \u201cNeuromarketing\u201d field that use biometric tools to help businesses get a better sense of how people react to advertisements and other marketing stimulus (before language kicks in). However, I think you could get started in the right direction by reading books like Roger Dooley\u2019s\u00a0Brainfluence<\/a><\/em>\u00a0to get a better handle on it.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, and within the petri dish we all have at our fingertips, experiment with various ways to use images, video and short one-liners in your social communications. Pay attention and see how people respond. Do they get more interaction than standard posts? What kind of interaction? Do you see any patterns over time? Start using Pinterest, Instagram and any other visual tools your consumers fancy\u2026 and try all different things.<\/p>\n

Visual is powerful and how consumers relate to, share, and think about what they have seen can open a whole new world to marketers\u2026 but it \u2018s scary and hard to control. Are you ready?<\/p>\n

Originally posted at TedRubin.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In\u00a0John Nosta\u2019sThinkology\u00a0blog post,\u00a0\u201cThe Fundamental Marketing Dilemma: Language is a Lie,\u201d\u00a0he discusses books like Malcom Gladwell\u2019sBlink\u00a0and Tor Norretranders\u2019s\u00a0The User Illusion,\u00a0which explore the ideas of how we perceive things. These authors assert that our first impressions are processed not by conscious thought and language, but by much faster processes that are rooted in our reptilian and mammalian … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1458,1184,1413,1714,677,1715,1716,1575,1691,3,1717,1465],"class_list":["post-4321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tedrubin","tag-tedrubin-2","tag-collective-bias","tag-featured","tag-gladwell","tag-images","tag-instagram","tag-john-nosta","tag-pinterest","tag-shopper-marketing","tag-ted-rubin","tag-thinkology","tag-visual"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4321"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4338,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4321\/revisions\/4338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}