So, I sat on a digital marketing panel for the Utah Chapter of the American Advertising Federation (AAF Utah) last night. With some illustrious local advertising experts:

Jason Bangerter, Founder StruckAxiom

Dave Nibley, Creative Director Rain

Craig Aramaki, Chief Digital Officer Richter7

Ian Barkley, Business Development Rastar

And Me, Shawn Butler, Digital Strategy Saxton|Horne

Here is a photo of the panel:

 


Here is a photo from the panel:

 


(Notice the conspicuously empty front row)

One of my favorite moments of the night was a discussion on social media marketing. We identified that sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and even MySpace are vehicles for tactical execution of an overall strategy. Craig mentioned that social networking is not new, that it was a part of human nature to give word-of-mouth referrals to our peer groups. And I shared my illustration that we are simply using technology and the facility of social media platforms to augment a behavior that has been occurring since the days of the cave men: A Twitter post that says “I love the burritos at Cafe Rio” is our modern equivalent to “Hey, Og, eat there! That bush has good berries.”

I though it was a clever analogy, and it apparently struck a chord with some audience members!

It was a great conversation in a room full of smart people. And says GREAT things about the future of digital and creative advertising in Salt Lake and the Mountain West area. For more fun quotes, you can search Twitter or go to the Utah Ad Fed’s FB Page.

This is the video of the presentation that I did for Ignite Salt Lake last month on Social Media Addiction. Shawn Butler: The 6th Legal Addiction

The 6th Legal Addiction

The FDA currently recognizes 5 substances as being both legal and addictive:
Legal Addictive Substances:

1. Caffeine
2. Nicotine
3. Alcohol
4. Meds: Aspirin & Prescription Drugs
5. Sugar

Reading the definition above, and in my profession as a social media marketer, I am more and more convinced that we have discovered the 6th legal addictive substance. Social media websites like Facebook and Twitter fit the description of an addictive substance perfectly. In fact, psychologists are currently debating an additional substance called IVR that would be attributable to a line of “behavioral addictions” including compulsive shopping, kleptomania, overeating, problem gambling and Twitter usage. Research has shown that engaging in social media activities stimulates the same neurological pleasure sensors of the brain, releasing alpha waves and endorphins into the system, as cocaine, heroine and sexual activity.

Skinner’s Box

In the 1960’s, famed behavioral scientist B.F. Skinner, originator of “pavlovian training” and “conditioned response,” ran experiments on animals that determined a type of addictive behavior he called Intermittent Variable Reward (IVR) – A method of behavioral reinforcement conditioned by rewarding action intermittently (as opposed to consistently).

One of his experiments consisted of putting a rat in a cage with a button that it could push to release a food pellet. The rat would at first push the button a few times, and then, gradually get into a pattern of just pushing it when he was hungry.However, Skinner found that if he adjusted the button so that it sometimes gave 1 pellet, sometimes 2, and sometimes no pellets, that the rat would become addicted to the act of pushing the button at the expense of all else; forgetting to eat, to sleep or anything—literally pushing the button until it died.

Classic Behavioral Addictions

This is the same psychological mechanism that makes slot machines so addictive. You see, it’s the “variable” that is exciting to us. It is the “not knowing.” If a slot machine gave you back a $1 every time you inserted $1, it would be like an ATM machine. You’d never get addicted.

There are literally thousands of people right now all over the world who are compulsively clicking the refresh button on their email, Facebook, and Twitter to check if they have been tagged, friended, unfriended or invited to something. The science of intermittent variable reward tells us that we’re “addicted” to checking our social media accounts not because we know we’ll be rewarded with something interesting, but because we might be.

FUN FACT: There are only 2 industries that refer to their customers as “users:”
1. The internet. 2. Drug dealers.

In the voice of Chris Farley in “Tommy Boy,” this is why I suck as a blogger:

I just spent 23 minutes watching the future. Browsers were invented by guys like Marc Andreesson in the early ‘90s to make it easy for people to find websites. It is really the primary piece of software for most of today’s computer usage.

So, why isn’t it innovating? Why doesn’t my primary piece of software learn my habits? Why am I going to the same 8 or 10 websites everyday and looking for updates? Why is customization limited to my iGoogle landing page?

Why am I using archaic feeling things like 3-click or worse, cut-and-paste, RSS feeds? In fact, let’s talk about this… Robert Scoble and Seth Godin both love RSS feeds—the information you want is being served to you as soon as it is available with no need to search! So, why are only 4% of people using this service?

My answer is that it is not intuitive, it’s not simple. We want something that makes sense with how we use it and not worry about how we find it and set it up.

So, I signed up for the Beta version of RockMelt. It is built off of Chrome (my current most-used browser) and, in trying to quickly explain it to a co-worker I dubbed it “Google Chrome on Steroids.” But it does some completely distinct things…

I’m not trying to sell RockMelt, so no product review, here, but I am pointing out that smart people are looking at how internet usage and web browsing have changed. And that can only mean good things. Making an experience around how we actually use a technology is the type of advancement that brings on widespread adoption. In Scoble’s interview with the guys at RockMelt they said they’re not worried about monetizing at this phase. Well, that’s because if they get this right, the money will come.

If it is simple and intuitive (Note: Microsoft discussed rebranding RSS to increase it’s popularity) and actually helps me to have a better browser experience, I will use this new tool. And I will be back with a product review!

More on RockMelt is available here: