Social: Session 5: The Science of Relationship

Track: Social

The Science of Relationship
Michael Wu, PhD (mich8elwu)
Principal Scientist of Analytics @ Lithium

April 24th, 2012

agenda
▪ Introduction: CRM data
▪ Development and maintenance of relationship
• Anthropology: complementarity between social network and community

▪ Interpersonal relationship and the Dunbar limit
• Sociology: the attention economy

▪ Customers relationship (with brands)
• Application: dealing with the Facebook irony

▪ Future work
twitter: mich8elwu
#scon12 linkedin.com/in/MichaelWuPhD

what’s the “R” in social CRM
▪ What data do CRM system store?
• Contact record
• email, phone, address
• twitter, facebook, linkedin?
• Transaction record
• purchase/sales history
• order/fulfillment data
• Support record
• support case history
• service delivery data

▪ Where’s the “r”elationship data in CRM system?

#scon12
twitter: mich8elwu
linkedin.com/in/MichaelWuPhD 3

Today’s CRM system

“R” ≈ record
≠ relationship

#scon12 twitter: mich8elwu

where do we find relationship data?
▪ On social media
• Facebook
• Linkedin

▪ It’s a huge
ecosystem of
tools+services
▪ There are too
many places to
look!

#scon12
twitter: mich8elwu

Social is not new!

Human have been
social since they
were caveman


Social anthropology
perspective of social

Tech  relationship
1. Social network
2. Community


how do social networks form?

A story of how Bob’s social Emeryville
network was built = community

weak ties
Bob strong ties
old members
new / casual
members

#scon12
twitter: mich8elwu

how do social networks form?

Emeryville
college = community
Social networks form
naturally within
communities as people
establishes relationships

Social network
maintains relationships
as people move
work between communities

#scon12
twitter: mich8elwu

what do real social network data look like?

#scon12
twitter: mich8elwu

communities vs. social networks (on/offline)
▪ Social Network ▪ Community
• Held together by pre-existing • Held together by some common
interpersonal relationships interests of a large group of
between individuals people

• You know everyone in your • Most people, especially new
network (ego-network), people members, do not know majority of
who are connected to you directly the members in the community

• Each person has only one social • Any one person may be part of
network, despite there are many many communities at any given
social network platforms time

• Structure: Network • Structure: Hierarchical,
overlapping & nested

#scon12
twitter: mich8elwu

communities vs. social networks (on/offline)
▪ Social Networks ▪ Community

#scon12
twitter: mich8elwu

lifecycle of relationships
disconnected Easy!
do
1. creating All it takes is
something a weak tie an “hello”
bad

weak tie
2. building
do tie strength
nothing

strong tie 3. maintaining
relationship

#scon12
twitter: mich8elwu

But what is
relationship?


the components of a relationship
▪ Relationship: sociology perspective
• A tie or a connection between two entities (e.g.
people, companies, cities, or even nations)
• Tie strength = strength of the relationship

▪ Granovetter: components of tie strength
• Time: amount of time spent together
• Intensity: emotional intensity & sense of closeness
• Trust: intimacy or mutual confiding (transparency)
• Reciprocity: amount of reciprocal services

▪ Strong relationships requires more time & attention
#scon12
twitter: mich8elwu

the attention economy
▪ We only have 24 hours a
day
▪ We only have fixed amount
of attention

▪ How many meaningful
relationship can we have?

via nielsen

#scon12
twitter: mich8elwu

~150: the Dunbar number (or Dunbar limit)
▪ Prof. Robin Dunbar found a
relationship between brain
size of primate species and
their group size 148

▪ Extrapolate data from 38
primate species to human
neocortex ratio  Dunbar
number = 148 (~150)
▪ Verified by surveying pre- we know the human neocortical ratio

industrial villages/tribes
#scon12
twitter: mich8elwu

does Dunbar limit still applies in modern society?
▪ Order our relationship from wife
children
the strongest (immediate parents
family) to the weakest
(acquaintance) siblings

tie strength
▪ This creates a relationship close friends
profiles for each person
acquaintance
▪ In pre-industrial villages &
tribes, people only know …………
~150 people on average 16 ~150
# of relationships

#scon12
twitter: mich8elwu

does Dunbar limit still applies in modern society?
▪ Dunbar’s limit may not wife
children
apply in modern society b/c parents
• necessity for social cohesion is
substantially lower
• communication (an important part siblings

tie strength
of socializing) is much more close friends
efficient

acquaintance
▪ But our brain hasn’t …………
changed for millennia…
16 ~150
# of relationships

#scon12
twitter: mich8elwu

we can have more than 150 friends

if have fewer strong ties
tie strength

attention shift from
stronger ties to weaker ties

strong ties ~150 weak ties
# of relationships

#scon12
twitter: mich8elwu

we can have more than 150 friends

We can shift our time/attention around, but the total
amount of time/attention remain roughly the same

if have weaker strong ties
area under the area under the
tie strength

yellow relationship profile = blue relationship profile
attention shift from
stronger ties to weaker ties

strong ties ~150 weak ties
# of relationships

#scon12
twitter: mich8elwu

What about the
relationship between
customers & brands?

customer relationship < personal relationship
(with brands) (with people)
always weaker

the Facebook irony
▪ Facebook contains a lot of our strong ties
• By definition, these stronger ties will demand more attention, and will win more
of your limited time/attention

▪ Irony: because Facebook is “too good” at maintaining our
strong ties, it created problems for itself:
• In the presence of strong ties, weaker ties
are harder to develop into strong ones but it’s too fast for your dog
• If you already have strong relationship with
your customers. Great! maintain them
with Facebook is the way to go
• Otherwise, the strong ties on Facebook will
hinder the development of weak ties

#scon12
twitter: mich8elwu

How can brands
build stronger
relationships with
their customers?


component #1: time
▪ “time” = time spent together desire = mutual
≠ duration of relationship
▪ “time” increases tie strength trust
if the desires to spend time
together is mutual time
LOVE
reciprocity

intensity

#scon12
twitter: mich8elwu

component #1: time
▪ “time” = time spent together desire = non-mutual
≠ duration of relationship
▪ “time” increases tie strength trust
if the desires to spend time
together is mutual time

▪ Key: know when your reciprocity

customers want to spend
time with you, and be there intensity
HATE
for them

#scon12
twitter: mich8elwu

component #2: intensity
▪ Customers’ intensity for
brands is much lower than
their intensity for friends
trust
▪ It is genetic! We have no
control over it
time
▪ Tactic: appeal to greater reciprocity
causes that customers
have strong emotions for
intensity
▪ Key: don’t try too hard on
this component

#scon12
twitter: mich8elwu

component #3: trust
▪ Transparency creates an
environment that’s more
conducive for building trust
trust
▪ 2 types of transparency
• brand–customer time
• blog, twitter, etc
reciprocity
• customer–customer
• community discussion forum

intensity

#scon12
twitter: mich8elwu

component #3: trust
▪ People trust themselves, so trust
they tend to trust brands
that co-create with them
▪ 2 types of co-creation
• passive: listening + collect customer input time
• active: crowdsourced ideation + filtering reciprocity

▪ Key:
1. Create transparent & authentic intensity
communication channels to
customers & among customers
2. Co-create with your customers

#scon12
twitter: mich8elwu

component #4: reciprocity
▪ Reciprocity = 2 way
reciprocal services
▪ Customer Brands trust
• Make it easy for them to help other
customers of yours
• Reward them properly and serve time
right
reciprocity
▪ Create a sustainable cycle
of reciprocity by co-creation
intensity
▪ Key: don’t forget to let your
customer help you

#scon12
twitter: mich8elwu

building customer relationship
▪ Customer community
• Opt-in: it’s there when the
customers want it
• May have a great cause trust
• Transparent channel
• Platform for co-creation
time
• Enables reciprocity
reciprocity
▪ Customer relationship are
build the same way as intensity
inter-personal relationships,
in a community

#scon12
twitter: mich8elwu

Now we know how
relationships are built,
can we measure it?


not yet, but each pillar is ~quantifiable~

how transparent is your
how deep are the at what rate are
how much time spent in engagements brand to your customers?
reciprocal and
your brand community? with your brand?
how responsive you are mutual services
how much time spent sentiment ratio, to your customers? being carried
engaging & participating emotions out?
how many inter-customer
on your fan page,
discussion do you enable?
youtube channel, etc.? hard to measure. But
that’s OK, b/c it’s hard at what rate are content
to influence too being co-created w/ your
customers?

#scon12
twitter: mich8elwu

future CRM
Big challenges:
Combining the metrics for the 4 pillars
into a single metric that quantifies the
strength of relationship.
There are nonlinear dependencies
between the 4 pillars of a relationship, so
a simple linear model, such a weighted
average, won’t be sufficient.

Hopefully, future CRM will not only have
data on your customers’ relationship with
your brand, but also the strength of
relationships among your customers.
#scon12
twitter: mich8elwu

Thank you
Q&A + discussion

@mich8elwu

#scon12
twitter: mich8elwu

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