I would argue that one of the main reasons that Social Media has been so widely adopted is that it gives us the ability to express our identity. With our own curation tools and megaphones, we’re given the ability to express, cultivate and, in some cases, find our identity.
What is an Identity?
Identity is the story we tell ourselves, about ourselves. It’s the story that we tell others to define who we perceive ourselves to be through years of intimate observation. By living through our own experiences, seeing through our own eyes, and hearing our own internal monologue throughout everything, we create something that we call, an identity.
This story not only defines how we see ourselves, but also how we relate to others and respond to circumstances.
Why Identity Matters in Everything
People are very attached to who they are, their tendencies, the story that they tell about themselves. This impacts how they react online, how they react in business and how they react in their personal lives.
It’s worth noting that what we accept as everyday life, is really a series of interactions between unique identities and the synchronization or friction between the story people tell themselves, and the one others say about them. This paints the picture that all interactions are, in reality, a function of how we identify with the subjects in the interaction, namely ourselves and the other “characters.” Furthermore, friction often arises in circumstances where an outsider challenges someone to think outside of their own story or questions the legitimacy of the story itself. After all, “who are they to tell me who I am?!”
The truth is, identity actually matters more than you care to consider
More often than not, we take this layer of human behavior for granted. It just is.
The reason Myers-Briggs and other personality assessments are so popular is that they identify people’s tendencies making it easier to interact with them effectively. Most personality assessment tests are scored by the answers people give about how they react in certain scenarios which creates a scenario where a bias can arise out of the answer a person may innately know is the truth, versus how they want to be perceived. Who a person is, is as much as product of who they want to be, as it is of who they really are.
Are you considering “their” Identity?
One of the reasons companies are successful in their marketing efforts, is that either knowingly or unknowingly, they are telling their customers the story about themselves; either who their customer really is, or who their customer wants to be. This is often what is lost in marketing and advertising.
As an example, look at the two primary competing smartphone platforms:
- iPhone customers believe that they are cool and unique. They tell themselves that they are stylish, minimalist and appreciate clean design and simplicity. Apple customers will often say that they are less concerned with the complexities and would rather pay more to be given something more controlled so that they don’t have to think or worry about it.
- Android customers also want to believe that they are cool and unique but that being cool isn’t about style as much as it is about substance. They fancy themselves as people who appreciate choice and openness and regard themselves as being more populist with a “stick it to the man” mindset. They are price conscious and believe that value is an important component in their purchases which is why choice is important.
This is how the marketing of these devices is appealing to their audiences. Apple has been a shining example of selling the sizzle, not the steak, because their ideal customer wants sizzle. By contrast, many Android makers have appealed to their ideal customer by creating a differentiation from “the man” (Apple). But even in these two examples, this only touch a fraction of the overall customer base. Even in those two examples they share similarities yet are fundamentally different. But in both cases, the identity of each of those target customers plays very heavily into their choice of mobile device.
Rarely when companies begin building a Social Media strategy, a customer service strategy, a Marketing strategy–or any other strategy for that matter–does identity come into discussion.
Customers are often segmented by income, demographics and buying habits, but that is like frosting on a cake. What motivates those behaviors is a story that people are saying about themselves. It is a series of underlying factors that will define whether someone is interested in talking to someone from America on their customer service call or if the outsourced option is appropriate.
When a company is trying to initiate a technology change in a company, the biggest hurdle is often the people who say about themselves, that they aren’t particularly tech savvy, or that “it’s going to take me forever to learn all of this.” If they say it, it’s true. There is no way to convince someone that thinks they are bad with technology that they are good.
An Exercise
I don’t have this whole thing figured out yet, but it’s occurred to me over the last several weeks, during meetings with partners, prospects and clients, that my biggest hurdle is often overcoming or working within someone’s tendencies. I often will try to guess someone’s Myers-Briggs profile when I first meet them and normally with a fairly high accuracy. I do this because as a high energy, optimist that thrives in busy, fast paced environments filled with people, I can be far too overwhelming for a even-tempered introvert with significant doubts about things. As a creative dreamer-type, I’m often difficult to understand for the organized and grounded type. I do my best to assess the other person prior to getting into any serious discussion about how to work together. I also try to acknowledge that being a high energy optimist and a creative dreamer are part of how I identify myself and sometimes inhibit me from taking part in conversations that I shut myself out of.
In any event, I challenge you to bring IDENTITY into your conversations, no matter what you do. No matter what business you are in, there is someone on the other side, and their connection to what they think about themselves is often far more set in stone than anything you have to say to them. If you are trying to communicate with a market segment, get to understand them more deeply than you ever had in the past. Take the time to actually talk to some individuals in that group. Find out who they really are and what they value. I think you’ll be surprised by what you find.