Have you ever wondered about the reasons behind the success of social media? What made Facebook become a $10 Billion business? Why does Facebook have more than 350 million users? Why do you have over 3 million images uploaded on Flickr every day? Why are over 900,000 thousand blogs posted daily? More than 45 million status updates per day are recorded on Facebook, more than 27 million tweets on Twitter, and more than 1 billion videos are served on Youtube in the same time frame (Source – Internet 2009 in numbers). What is behind all that success? The answer lies in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs!
Psychologist Abraham Maslow first introduced his concept of a hierarchy of needs in his 1943 paper “A Theory of Human Motivation” and his subsequent book, “Motivation and Personality”. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is often displayed as a pyramid. The lowest levels of the pyramid are made up of the most basic needs, while the more complex needs are located at the top of the pyramid – starting off with Physiological needs, then Safety, Love & Belonging, Self-Esteem, and finally, Self Actualization needs. This hierarchy suggests that people are motivated to fulfill basic needs before moving on to other needs. So how is that related to Social Media?
I have created a replica of Maslow’s pyramid and tied it in to social media.
Similar to Maslow’s pyramid, in the social media counterpart we have to complete our “basic needs” before moving up to our “social needs” ultimately reaching our social optimization. Are your basic needs in sync with your social media needs? Where do you stand and what are you doing to move upwards? If you’re still having trouble understanding social media, maybe you should consider your needs and what you need to do to fulfill them. Think About It!
Very interesting. However, based on your pyriamid, can one conclude the increased need for social media is because we lack the love, self-esteem, and self-actualization? What about all those pictures we take of ourselves? Are we in need of more? Do we NEED social media? That’s what it would seem. Somehow society has found where it NEEDS to be needed…therefore the boom of social media in our busy lives. Great thought provoking article! I NEEDed that? (pun intended)
John, great post, as usual. I just love marketing as a whole, and that pyramid was one of the coolest topics I’ve studied at college while doing my MBA, so I want to congratulate you for tying it up so well with social media and our needs for networking. I think it’s a perfect match! It’s amazing how you can find a “social networking side” to all things, I’m sure there are more ideas in your head so keep them coming!
One thing I’d like to mention here; I think what you’ve said about platforms and applications is right, and since you’ve now pointed out the similarities between both worlds (real and virtual), aside from users, the developers can really benefit from your Hierarchy while they are brainstorming to build a new application or while testing a platform. This would help them better understand what people truly need and how important to them software systems actually are. Just a thought…
I love how you incorporated Maslow’s needs with Social Media. I believe too many people get stuck in the bottom of the pyramid. These are the people that end up canceling their social media accounts and complain how “stupid” it is and how people “just write about what they did all day.” The number one rule for social media is to engage with people. Thats how one moves up the pyramid. It takes time and effort but can pay dividents. Thank you for a great visual representation of social media.
Of course, one has to have chips and circuits, supported by a power source to make the software to support the social needs! It’s a hierarchy, to be sure, and the next step, if Maslow is correct, will be to identify those people (or those organizations) which are to be esteemed.
Maslow said: “The good society is one in which virtue pays.” This is also true for organizations. Banks don’t make the cut this time around. And they are marketing crap as well.
Socio-actualization: what the good society can be, it must be!
John, great linkage, and visualization!!
I also liked what one of your readers, Sam had to say about Socio-actualization – what the good society can be, it must be! Could not agree more.
Keep sharing!!
Cheers,
Prince
Nice idea to overlay the two. However, I’m not sure I agree with the social media activities that you have mapped against the different stages.
For example, self actualisation doesn’t necessarily mean personal fulfilment, but that people will start to look beyond their own life to seek meaning in their life in other places beyond those activities that will bring them status benefits. Mapped on to social media, this may mean forming new communities or using existing communities to help others or to achieve things that will not necessarily bring them status (e.g. working on open source software).
In this vein, optimisation and monetization feel to me more like activities that people seeking status would persue, rather than self-actualised people.
Where this becomes difficult is that the same social media behaviours may be being undertaken for different underlying value reasons. For example, working on an open source project may be an effort to simply give back to the world, or the programmer may want to be perceieved as the best amongst their peer group that they are working with, thereby getting status in the group.
http://www.cultdyn.co.uk take this sort of approach in looking at cultural dynamics as the driver of behaviours.
You are absolutely right! As you mentioned, Personal Fulfillment is a relative term, therefore achieving it is not a science. I was having a very similar discussion with @dancelish on twitter – she questioned if monetization was the best way of expressing personal fulfillment. We agreed that to some it may be, but to people like you and me (and her) it’s more on the level of optimization where we can connect with a bigger audience that adds value to us. So in your example of open source, I can certainly relate how crowdsourcing would add to the last stage the Social Media Hierarchy of Needs. In your reply, you mentioned two different purposes, one that I would define as benevolent and the other fit more in the Personal Branding phase!
I think what we need to agree on is that Personal Fulfillment (or Self Actualization) is a relative term defined only by the limitations on one’s ultimate objectives! Think About It!
Thanks for adding value by providing discussion on #brandchat with your diagram and participating as well. See you next time!
John — Enjoyed the use of your pyramid graphic in this morning’s #brandchat. I have finished up a book that’s coming out in March (www.BrandZeitgeist.com) that I spend about half a chapter comparing brand relationships to Maslow’s pyramid (esp. the 3rd level of relationships and belonging).
I like the way you have used all levels of the pyramid as an example in SM.
John,
Thoughtful article. You did a good job tying Maslow’s Hierarchy into the social realm. You provide good examples to demonstrate the parallels. Kudos!
Us humans have a need to put things into a context, to somehow get a perspective on what is happening around us so the world we live in will becomes easier to understand. Or perhaps perceived to be easier to understand.
People create theories and models about almost everything, it helps us understand. One that most of us knows about is the hierarchy of needs.
As humans we are on a quest to put things and events into a context and Social Media is certainly no exception. One could almost say that Social media takes us one step further since it almost demands a context in order to be understandable.
And i think that is what u really did. great post jhon
God bless!
PS: ( i know its not pro to mention it here on your blog, but just wanted to tell you that it was a pleasure meeting you. It was amazing! keep on the good work John
“Aim High , Achieve Big”
Very interesting John.
I love the visualization plus it really does cut to the heart of the why social media works for some and not for others.
What is the “need” you are primarily trying to fulfill using Social Media? Are you really trying to give unconditionally or are you giving only based on what you will get in return.
There is nothing wrong with getting something back for our efforts but; since the primary focus of social media is building relationships, what kind of relationship would you build if all you were concerned with what you will get?
Thanks for pointing it out John because I have often wondered why it works for some and not others and now I can see…
Hi John,
I agree with Suzanne- you did a great job there, because you have successfully expanded Maslow’s original concept and adapted it to the Social Media world in just the right way.
I’ve been asking myself one question though: If you’re in the middle of Personal Branding, getting a lot of support from like-minded people that appreciate your company, but are not necessarily clients,
how do you get to reach the goal of Monetization?
The thing about Social Media is that it is a wonderful tool to get people to notice us. The buzz of communication with those who understand what we’re talking about is very powerful and extremely motivating.
But, nonetheless, it is not nearly as important as getting commissions from paying clients, isn’t it? 😉
So, how can we use Social Media to reach potential clients?
Hey Sarah, I agree with you 100% – Social Media is a great tool to earn your brand the attention is deserves – but we all need to cash in on that passion, otherwise our argument falls short.
So how do we do that? How to monetize? Below are a couple of things I did for my brand to move to the top of that pyramid:
1- After a good deal of giving, I earned the right to start promoting my services. So I made sure to let people know how I can help them (this is when the “Work With Me” section was added to my blog.
2- I joined LinkedIn groups – One of the underused tools there is the “questions” section. This is solicited attention – they are literally asking to be helped – and you come in for the rescue!
3- I sought out speaking engagements – this gives you offline exposure. We sometimes have the tendency of forgetting to liase between both worlds and this where our brand flops.
4- I made sure my brand name was unique – meaning, if I were to search on youtube for JOHN ANTONIOS, there wouldn’t be a problem of mistaken identity. This required a lot of time and “giving”, specially since it was all organic.
But frankly Sarah, if I were to sum it all up at the risk of sounding idealistic and naive – it all boils down to your willingness to benevolently give without fear. Some argue that if I write all this stuff, I risk losing customers, since I’m giving them the solutions – if that were the case, then by reading a text book on any subject, I become an expert … something we both know is not remotely true! All you need to do is network with the right crowd, and you can even go out on a limb … if you trust your abilities, why not engage in the project and base your compensation all on objectives agreed on with a client – they would have nothing to lose, and you would have everything to win – this is where you willingness to invest in your sweat equity comes in 😉
Hope this helps – make sure to keep me posted and let me know how I can help!
JA
very interesting!! you should check out the social media hierarchy of needs http://bobolink.co/blog/?p=707