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c h a p t e r10: SOCIAL OBJECTS■Whether you’ve built around a lifestyle, passion, or cause, or you have more
tightly defined your presence around a brand, product, or service; the payoff comes
when you tie your business into it by being relevant rather than being loud. Recall that
the Social Web is built around open and transparent participation. Leveraging a social
object is best done by operating from the perspective of a genuine participant rather
than assuming center stage as a contrived actor.Drive Conversations and Connections
The most basic role of the social object is driving conversation. In the business appli-
cations discussed previously, the social object brings participants together based on
a common interest around which a conversation occurs. It also provides a relevant
context for a brand, product, or service. Pepsi’s The Juice program built around its low
calorie, all-natural Trop50 orange juice provides an example of the central role of the
conversation in a social setting, and the role of the social object—women’s health and
well-being—while clearly tying the customer and product together.
This clear connection is important: Recall that a basic fact of social media is
that in comparison with traditional media, it is harder to interrupt. This differentiator
plays out in two ways: First, because it is harder to interrupt the activities of partici-
pants directly—like the way you can interrupt a TV program with an ad or an online
page view with a pop-up—your activities with regard to your business objectives have
to have an obvious relevance. Otherwise, you’ll be ignored (best case) or asked to leave
(worst case). The Social Web isn’t a marketing venue, though it is a very powerful mar-
keting platform.
Second, because it is harder to interrupt (if not impossible), your message, your
value, and your contributions to the community must be delivered within the existing
conversation. In an analogy to TV, think about the difference between product adver-
tising on TV versus product placement within the TV program. In the case of product
advertising, there is a clear distinction between the program and the ad: In the case of
product placement, the product becomes part of the program.
Your participation in communities built with or around social objects is much
closer to the product placement model. While you cannot “buy placement” on the
Social Web, your participation needs to blend with its context in the same way that
effective product placement does, to be part of the community rather than an interrup-
tion, or called out with a “brought to you by” message placed alongside it. Note here
that “blend in” does not mean “hidden” and certainly does not mean “covert,” but
rather that as a transparent, disclosed participant, your message should be a natural
element of the surrounding conversation.
Beyond building conversations, social objects and your business relationship
to them provide the foundation of a strong connection to your audience in a branded
community or to the participants in or around a lifestyle, passion, or cause-based