I have been struggling to write a (scholarly) book chapter on Corporate Reputation, social media and authenticity. As I have been writing myself around and around the issue(s), there is one thing that I cannot get my finger on, and that is:
Why does having interacted with an organization through social media make us feel more partial towards that organization?
Why are we more likely to like and even to defend an organization, once we have interacted online with that organization’s representative?
I’ve been playing with ideas about social presence, about scripted vs. context-specific interaction, about individual connections vs. ‘corporate’ ones, but I know that I haven’t found the psychological mechanism(s) yet.
It could be that I’m looking in the wrong places (e.g., CMI (computer mediated interaction) vs. social psychology’s Contact Hypothesis), or that I don’t have the right language, or maybe that the research has not actually been conducted.
But I do know that the phenomenon is real.
For example, earlier this week Robbin Phillips wrote a lovely post, Keeping Promises, at the BrainsOnFire blog, where she describes how her connection with Scott Monty leads her to protect Ford’s reputation.
Something about “knowing” someone at Ford has made me a sincere fan. I’ve even found myself defending them on occasion, in one on one conversations and even to large groups. I have just grown – well — fond of them.
Robbin attributes her feelings about “Ford” as an organization to her feelings about @ScottMonty as a person… recognizing that Ford has managed to “humanize the brand” by using a very personable person and skilled communicator and natural Zen-PR guy) to represent them.
While I do think that Robbin’s reaction is unique to her and her connection with Scott, I also think that there is something more general and more common in the phenomenon…
Could it be that:
- The person-to-representative connection just like the connection between touching an object and creating a preference for it? (1)
- Ford has shown something about itself as an organization by choosing Scott as a particular/specific person? (org identity reflected in choice)
- Ford has shown something about itself as an organization by ‘allowing’ the social media folks (like Scott and his team) the freedom to interact as they see fit? (org identity reflected in process choice)
- People transfer to Ford the qualities of what they feel about Scott (simple attribute transfer)?
As Colby Gergen says “I trust Ford because they are associated with Scott, not the other way around.” Is it that social media give us a person first, rather than a ‘corporation’, making it easier to transfer feelings about a person to the organization than it otherwise would be to transfer feelings about an organization to a person?
I’ve seen a lot of words bandied about that describe this phenomenon, but not any proposed ‘mechanisms’—
I’d love your thoughts on what makes us like and maybe even defend organizations once we have interacted with their representatives online… What do you think explains this?
(1) Wolf, Arkes & Muhanna (2008) The power of touch: An examination of the effect of duration of physical contact on the valuation of objects. Judgment and Decision Making, 3 (6): 476-482.
Gentle Touch by cindy47452 on Flickr
Touch Me by jjjohn on Flickr