What 3Sixty Knows…

The modern world is a really chaotic and confusing place.

The online world is even more confusing and hard to comprehend than the offline world, thanks to the super-abundance of information, so working out how best to engage with people online is clearly very important.

To help us navigate the world we use what the psychologists like to call ‘Cognitive Heuristics‘ which is the academic name for simple rules of thumb that help us make sense of the chaos.

Below are six of these heuristics which Ben Scofield ran us through at SXSW on day 2.

1.  Likeabilty

This heuristic says that when we like people we tend to do what they want us to do.

Online likeabilty is the best studied of all the heuristics we might use online.  Making your site attractive, engaging and likeable is really, really important. So be likeable, and don’t cut corners just because a deadline is looming, you’ll pay the price.

2. Social Proof

People are so keen to fit in with their social group that they will tell you black is white, even when they know it not to be true.  When you are faced with chaos you look at what your group members behaviour to figure out the world.  Hence the success of sites like Gowalla and Foursquare.  So show people what their peers are doing.

3. Authority

We are brought up to respect authority, it is so deeply engrained in our culture that ordinary people will even administer fatal electric shocks to others if an authority figure tells them to do so (Milgram’s experiment).  The problem is the world wide web is like the wild west and authority does not translate well online.

So do everything you can to boost trust in your website, and show people you are worthy of their trust.  Stanford have set up a web credibility project which provides some useful guidelines on this.

4. Recipriocity

When you give people something they incur an indebtedness to you.  Give people something useful for free, whether it is information, or an application or physical goods and they will keep coming back to you, even when the time comes to put their hand in their pocket and purchase something.  It has forged a relationship which makes it easier for them to choose you over the unknown.

5. Scarcity

We want things when they are scarce, this is incredibly powerful, people fear things might run out and they will miss out.  So tell people when the window of opportunity is closing.

6. Commitement

We are all commited to preserving or developing our self identity, once people make a decision to use your product or services they will continue to make that decision as it is easier than facing all the chaos and stress of choosing all over again.  So give people a low cost way to commit and they will keep coming back even if it might not be the rational thing to do.

Thanks Ben Scofield for the talk Mind Control: The psychology of the web at SXSWi

I went to a panel on neuromarketing yesterday, or it might have been the day before – you don’t get much sleep out here, so the days are merging in to one!

Anyway I’ll do a proper write up on that soon, however in the meantime, here is a short video to tickle your fancy…

1. Understand that content is more than just text.

It can be images, video, audio, testimonials, error messages,   anything that shapes how you sound, rather than how you look.

2. Give content the attention it deserves.

Don’t spend all your time on the framework and visual style and hope you can just shoehorn the content in at the last minute – this is akin to designing an art gallery without thinking about the kind of art it is going to house.

3. Get yourself a content strategy.

Start by defining your message architecture.  Understanding clearly the value proposition of your brand and having a clear strategy for communicating that is critical – it is all too easy to slip off message otherwise.

4. Remember content strategy is NOT copywriting.

Content strategy is the big picture thinking,what kinds of things are we saying, what is our tone, when should we say them.  It has more in common with traditional brand planning than copywriting.

5. Do a content audit.

What do you currently have on your site, what content do you currently have elsewhere.  You need to know what you are working with in order to improve it.  It is easy to forget about those dusty pages languishing in a rarely visited corner of your site, especially when you have a CMS.

6. When you know all the content you have, review it.

See if it is relevant (to your audience), current (still true -n.b. current and recent are different), and is it appropriate (does it marry up to your message architecture).

7. Marry up your message architecture with your tone of voice.

If one of your key messages is around simplicity then write in a simple, clear way.

8. Use the content audit and your message architecture for a gap analysis.

If your message architecture says one of your key messages is around great customer service, but you don’t have any testimonials to back that up – then you need to fix that.  Work out where the gaps are.

9. Use your content strategy to help you plan.

Stop wasting energy on content you actually don’t need just because you think you might.  A clear content strategy provides focus.

10. Do the content strategy upstream, especially if you are doing a website re-design.

It is a lot cheaper to work out how you want to be perceived in words than endless rounds of changes in photoshop.  It will also help you ensure how you sound and how you look are consistent with each other which will make your site more trustworthy, likeable and effective.

Have fun with your content, and remember it is an iterative process!!  Keep working at it!

Thanks Margot Bloomstein, Rachel Lovinger and Karen McGrane for some great practical talks on content at SXSWi.

The RSA are running a really interesting project to look at how people make decisions in the real world. In the past this has been assumed to be a fairly rational process by many, however it is becoming increasingly apparent that this is not the case and the RSA are doing some further work with the aim of creating more accurate models for the human decision making process.

I am going to find out if there is any way of becoming involved in this project as it is pretty leading edge and would potentially bring tremdous value to our thinking.