Mike Metzger of The Clapham Institute writes a weekly must-read piece called the Clapham Commentary.

Mike will often talk about the concept of “ordering your loves.” Let me explain how I understand the idea:

Imagine you have these 3 ideas, goals, or let’s call them “loves”: vacation, money, and time at home. Let’s first note that none of those things are intrinsically bad (or good).

If you love vacation more than than you love time at home, that will directly affect how you plan your year. Just because you love vacation more than time at home doesn’t mean you’ll never be home. Rather, one priority informs the other, and in this case, you’ll be heading to the beach!

Now, let’s say you love money more than vacation. All of a sudden, there is a different and higher priority that informs your decision making. Now, though you love vacation more than time at home, you may actually be more inclined to stay at home so that you can save money. It’s a worthy sacrifice because you’re responding to a greater love.

Here’s the twist: let’s say you love your family more than you love money. Now what do you do? Which is more critical to the success of that even-greater love: vacation or staying at home (or saving money)? Moreover, what is a greater love than even your family? Your career? God? The environment?

There isn’t an answer. But there is a guiding principle: How you order your loves will directly affect the decisions you make.

What does your organization love? What are the order of those loves? What hills do you die on – and in what order?

Do your customers care about knowing those things? Absolutely.

Go tell them,

brody

P.S. Wordswell is looking for a research intern.

Recently, Mike Metzger of the Clapham Institute wrote a piece called “Peer Pressure”. Metzger described a research study that looked at what message motivated people to reuse their towels in a hotel. Here’s the summary: appealing to folks to “do the right thing” didn’t work. Instead, telling folks that “most guests in this room reuse their towels” did work.

The conclusion? Metzger writes, “People tend to conform to social customs, or what others call peer pressure. When people discover what most of their peers are already doing, they’re more likely to begin doing it themselves.” (Emphasis mine.) When there is “social proof” that something is a good idea, more people hop on the bandwaggon.

So how can you get your customers socially proving that other people should spend their time or money with you?

First of all, we need to understand that people have an unprecedented number of options when it comes to finding the goods and services they want. Additionally, the providers of goods and services now have new and innumerable ways of communicating about their brand. Both are largely the result of the forces of the internet.

In light of this, brands and organizations need to start adopting tribe mentalities. Meaning, your best chance at success is through ever-expanding influence. For more info on tribes and marketing, google Seth Godin.

In a tribe mentality, you as the leader (the brand that people love) need to create your own cultural norms, customs, and even your own language. These all contribute to a shared experience amongst your fans and members – and they create the dynamic that is the tribe. Metzger puts it this way, “People tend to convert to what their surrounding culture tells them is normative.”

Never before has this been so important, and never before have there been so many tools to do this. Social media is a key set of tools you can be strategically using to create your own normative culture. Social media is the easiest and fastest way for you to gain social proof that you’re worth the attention of others.

Make sure that you are creating customer experiences that make them want to vouch for you. Once you do that, make sure you’re helping to create venues where they can share their experience. The tools exist. Ever hear of a “re-tweet”?