If a bar had the opportunity to replace its bartender with a bartending machine, do you think it should? Even if the machine could hold a decent conversation because it was operated by a real person, do you think the bar would be as successful as one that used the real deal? Hold that thought, as we'll be returning to it soon.
Anonymous online communities have a bad reputation; but essentially they’re just powerful tools for collaboration and the spread of information. They can be used for good or ill.
One of the reasons the series rose in fame was because anyone who liked the series could be open about it, regardless of gender or age, in the anonymous community of 4chan. Since users could not be identified, there were no consequences, such as the social embarrassment of men admitting they liked a cartoon show for girls (it's not as creepy as it sounds, as My Little Pony was also designed with parents in mind). [Ed. note: It is as creepy as it sounds.] The community participants were far more forthcoming with information and honesty using the identity of “anonymous poster” than they would ever be on a network like Facebook.
The lesson for brands to learn here is that if they really want to know what people are thinking, give them the option of talking from behind a mask. This allows brands to achieve the following:
Calmly and fairly handle complaints. On anonymous communities, people are more apt to complain (and do so rudely), creating opportunities for the brand to demonstrate superior customer service in its responses and instill confidence from the target market.
Put privacy back into the hands of the consumers. Anonymous commenting gives the choice of privacy back to users, making them feel empowered.
Generate more comments. When people don't have to create yet another sign-up name and password, they are more likely to keep the discussion flowing.
Of course, the two major disadvantages of this approach are noise pollution from low-value comments and the amount of moderation required -- as news outlets will attest.
Ironically, to really reap the benefits of anonymous communities, a brand will have to give up its shield of anonymity and engage completely, allowing its employees to speak out on its behalf. A brand listening on a network is a faceless entity, inhuman and untrustworthy. A Scott Kinoshita who works for a brand on a network, however, is Scott Kinoshita first and a representative of the brand second.
Scott is human, he has a face, he is the bartender for The Brand (I told you we'd come back to it). Not only is a very human "bartender" more personable and transparent, but individuals who never wore a mask to begin with lend a distinctively authentic voice to their organization. The bartender becomes a familiar, trusted face the community opens up to.
While the setup of anonymous networks with "naked" organizations will have its fair share of challenges, it also offers a combination of consumer privacy with transparent engagement for brands, potentially generating superior data, engagement, and loyalty.
An anonymous community won't be appropriate for every organization, but it gives back consumers what they've lost -- privacy -- while offering brands the benefits of social networking.
I agree that having a person associated with a comment does make communicating online more personable. But I still believe the focus is on the context of the comment and not who said it.
I've seen Websites severely damaged by the simple pretext of hostile users pretending to be users in good standing. Sure, tracking IP addresses can do something to validate identity, but until we have trusted identities in cyberspace (whether that's a good thing or not), anonymity is only one way people can go undetected.
I think the whole anonyminity thing is a bit of a religious war, but one reason against it is simply ethics.
Not allowing anonymous posts (theoretically) prevents, for example, the CEO of Whole Foods hopping on a discussion board and impacting a stock price, investor senitment, or just plain being weird.
I understand that even those named may not be who they say they are.
What difference does it really make to know who made a negative remark? Most of the time, the people barking up the tree are not the same people that you would want to receive feedback from.
I read an article recently about freemium models. One company said that 80% of the complaints come from the free users (who never actually buy). So technically, their feedback is not that valuable. The people that matter in their eyes are the paid users. But I digress.
Anonymity should not be a big deal because if people think your brand is crappy, you should want to take a look in the mirror and determine if it's true regardless of who says it.
Like other community members, I too think that I wont mind being honest, no matter how rude I need to be, to brands with my own identity. However, for employees of an enterprise, they may take anonymity as an opportunity to express the truth so employers can have a real feedback in case they are facing problems of retention. But how many enterprise really care about getting their feedback from employees even when they face retention problem? Not many I guess as many of them do realize what are the reasons people arent continuing service for the long term.
@slfisher: That's true, but allowing for 'anonymous' in the eyes of some companies is the same as allowing for handles (which is kinda ridiculous, honestly). It's also why I don't recommend it for every situation. It really does depend on the interest. Do you have any communities that come to mind?
I've seen some communities get absolutely destroyed by anonymity; when people have no responsibility for what they say, some pretty ugly stuff can get out there.
On the other hand, there's a midline between anonymous and named, and that is when a community is around long enough that people have 'handles' and can be known and trusted -- or not -- based on those handles and the history of what they post. We've seen this on IRC, for example.
"I remember you're not so fond of companies being so grabby with your data, Nicole. Wouldn't it be nice for once if the control was given back to you? To let you say what the company may or may not know about you?"
It's a good point, Scott. I'm just trying to put myself in this situation and I'm wondering whether or not I'd take advantage of such a network. I'm not really interested in engaging with brands, and if I did have a complaint I would probably want to put my face on it, to be represented as a particular individual. (Anyway, this is just me I'm talking about... I don't necessarily represent everyone who may or may not use such a network.)
Thanks for the thoughtful reply to my question and for starting this interesting discussion.
"how should businesses that would otherwise might have gain extensive from an anonymous community approach their marketing strategy with Facebook?"
Because being anonymous is to be implemented as an option, it's a matter of using networks like Facebook to raise awareness. Once people reach the actual site or community they can participate anonymously.
Thanks Scott for a very thoughtful and detailed response. I am really in full support with your closing paragraph:
"A key advantage of an anonymous-option network I neglected to mention is the fact that it doesn't require an account to leave feedback, making it easier for the target market to speak. The harder feedback is to come by, the more suitable an anonymous network becomes."
There are times it is really hard to get helpful feedbacks because the lack of anonymity prevents some folks from giving one. And I think every business/organization do need feedback in order to improve on its systems or practices. So it does really make sense to reach out to anonymous communities if feedbacks are not coming according to script.
Now considering the fact that the largest and most popular of online communities i.e. Facebook will not go anonymous anytime soon, how should businesses that would otherwise might have gain extensive from an anonymous community approach their marketing strategy with Facebook?
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There is so much data available in analytics that it's easy for enterprise users to get sidetracked by some interesting numbers. It's even easier to be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data available, which threatens the value of analytics to the business. The solution for enterprise analytics experts is to have the intended audience for a report create a profile of the targets.
Many branded sites don't do their owners any favors. They may have been designed by professionals; yet they utterly fail to have good design, simply because those who wanted the site in the first place have little to no idea what they wanted to get from it.
While doing research online, I discovered some unpleasant stories about major gyms. We're talking about the biggest national gym chains across North America. Customer service nightmares, unfair practices, and at times borderline criminal behavior. These stories troubled me, since I'm a member of one of them, and there were a lot of stories about it in the comments -- with not a single response from the gym.
Facebook's Graph Search may face some profound challenges and risks, first, because Facebook users haven't been thinking of their posts as product reviews; and second, because Facebook will now have to contend with the social-network equivalent of SEO "gaming" of results.
A recent release of the popular TweetDeck app for Twitter power-users gives new life to software that had previously taken a wrong turn. Here's a quick walk-through of the new TweetDeck, to show you why it should be at the top of your Twitter toolkit.
Marissa Mayer at Yahoo has come out with her strategy on turning the company around: culture, company, calibration, and compensation. But Yahoo needs to have a technical approach to the mobile cloud opportunity, not a management theory lesson.
Amanda Richman, president of digital at MediaVest, cites the rise of the 'empowered consumer' as one of the most significant changes in digital marketing today.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
Expert Integrated Systems: Changing the Experience & Economics of IT In this e-book, we take an in-depth look at these expert integrated systems -- what they are, how they work, and how they have the potential to help CIOs achieve dramatic savings while restoring IT's role as business innovator. READ THIS eBOOK
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M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
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