The Psychology of the Social Media Community and How to Develop responses

The focus of Social Media changes rapidly as new and innovative ideas come to the surface. Newest kid on the block is location marketing, with applications such as Facebook Places, Four Square and Groupon developing a local, geographic approach to web-side marketing. The aim of these services is to generate responses to affiliate/member websites which can then be accessed via search or mobile technology on a local basis to entice visitors not just to the website but to the actual bricks and mortar venues themselves.

Social Media is about developing, publicising and generating interest in communities – be they users of your product or your service, regardless of whether you are a local pub or an international business. Local-Social - "Lo-So" - search is about developing local interest by making the business more and more visible to people with mobile web technology – iPhone, Android, and other smart phone technology. It is growing all the time and it is applicable for businesses large and small. Community development talks to people in their own language about their own interests and shares information specific to that group.

This is the area of growth, this is the area of development and here’s the reason why: the web is one great community, and it is a natural evolution for the community to split and find common ground. It’s what countries, societies and communities do in the physical world, and we are moving towards mirroring the real world on the web at a rapid pace as technology and applications catch up with what people want. Taken from an individual perspective, a human being wants several things in life – Maslow’s hierarchy of needs tells us this and it still stands the test of time. Now we have a radical new means of accessing these desires, and the technologies available match the needs for humans::

1. Physiological Needs

The most basic needs vital to survival, (water, air, food and sleep). Maslow believed that all needs become secondary until these physiological needs are met.

2. Security Needs

The need for safety and security. Security needs are important for survival, but they are not as demanding as the physiological needs. Online Equivalents: The web mirrors these needs via Internet security, personal web-space, safety in online communities, password protection, FireWalls, Captcha entry. Where the real world has fences and locks, we have duplicated these in online communities. The web was derived from the US Military looking for ways to create a safer environment in case the physical was destroyed by the weapons that mankind has made.

3. Social Needs

The need for belonging, love and affection. Relationships such as friendships, romantic attachments and families help fulfill this need for companionship and acceptance, as does involvement in social, community or religious groups. Online Equivalents: Facebook, LinkedIn, Social Networking in all its guises, common interest sites, the online community in its entirety. There is no avenue of human interest that is not catered for on the web, nor any that will not be in the future. We can communicate with relatives and friends a thousand miles away in the blink of an eye, keeping in touch around the world at every instant for personal or commercial reasons.

4. Esteem Needs

After the first three needs have been satisfied, esteem needs become increasingly important. These include the need for things that reflect on self-esteem, personal worth, social recognition and accomplishment. Online Equivalent: The function of a blog – for self-esteem and personal worth. There is nothing more personal yet more open than a blog and the web is full of personal stories, works of art, poetry, sadness, joy and the sheer human experience. It is a purely human endeavour and it purely reflects the human endeavour.

5. Self-actualizing Needs

Self-actualizing people are self-aware, concerned with personal growth, less concerned with the opinions of others and interested fulfilling their potential. Online Equivalents: Personal Websites and the interlinked nature of Social Media and websites. The web reflects what we want and need. We can ask, we can buy, we can search for the answers we are looking for. We can find new ways of expressing ourselves either in vacuous silence or to the planet. As individuals, groups or corporate bodies.



We see that human psychology is being reflected in the tools we use and above all in the Internet, arguably the greatest tool that humanity has yet created. We haven’t changed as creatures, but we are remarkably good at adapting our tools to the best use possible.

Where Now?

So where does it all go from here? It develops slowly and in stages. Sometimes there will be a great leap forward, other times, the steps will be wrong and an avenue will shut down. It is a model of evolution developing at a pace that Darwin could never have envisaged. For every Facebook, there are a hundred also-rans who never made it.

In terms of Lo-So media, what will be the next big thing? When it comes to deciding what to pin your colours to, the choices are hard, but things change so quickly that it is fine to swap allegiances as soon as new information and opportunity come along. With life-cycles lasting weeks rather than decades, the evolution carries on apace.

It is easy to get hyper-involved in thinking about web-based technologies as a separate and unique set of systems, above and beyond what we are used to using. Sometimes, a little perspective is useful to see that these tools fit in with who we are and what we are, and that they are our slaves, not we theirs.

Our role is to raise our vision to see what fits with our needs and the needs of our clients. We keep abreast of industry movements, of technological advances and how they are used across the web, then we propose best-practice use of the systems and programmes available.

Our goals are to reduce the space between our clients and their markets, and to make the messages between them as clear and as well-delivered as possible – using the most appropriate means available. Sometimes this is a leaflet, sometimes a FourSquare setup. But it is always done with thought and knowledge of the market and the evolution of business in mind.