Paul Adams discusses the connection between content and
social behavior.
to you today I'm here to introduce the
next speaker Paul Adams I could kind of
take you through his resume and tell you
all about his master's degree in
interactive media his degree in
interactive design industrial design and
the many patents he's earned for awesome
work at companies like Google Dyson and
more recently Facebook instead I'm going
to tell you a little story about how I
came to meet Paul a few months ago
widening Kennedy were working on a
project with one of my big clients and
we were using a product called Facebook
I think most of you probably have heard
of that and we was like to be honest we
were struggling a little bit we were
kind of trying to get our heads around
like what the best way to use this was
and the Facebook team invited us to go
down and collaborate with them and we
were terrified because this sounded
suspiciously like a workshop and if
you're a creative person or no creative
people workshop basically screams trap
it basically means you're gonna go and
people are gonna get you to do something
that you don't really want to do but
this was very different this was this
was great and Paul is one of the first
people that we met there he gave us this
amazing talk on connections and and
groups and relationships and human
evolution and the reasons why people
share what they do and this thought was
amazing because it kind of galvanized
you know we had a bunch of people they
were-- account people and strategists
and technologists and creative people
and after he spoke there was this kind
of collective sigh of relief that this
wasn't about complicated technology and
it wasn't about you know the latest
widgets and the latest apps that we had
to develop this was about basic human
truths and it was about people and the
stuff that they care about and it was so
empowering for everyone not to have to
worry about those kind of complicated
things and actually just basis in truth
and it was so good that I asked Paul to
come to widen and Kennedy and kind of do
the talk for the whole agency which he
kindly did and to devastating effect
like everyone just felt so sort of
relieved and happy that someone had
and just and just made this feel about
you know stories and humans and the
stuff that we all kind of that we all
feel much more comfortable with it was
one of the best talks that I've seen on
about the social web ever now the bad
news is he's not going to do that talk
for you today the good news is that he's
evolved this talk to the next level it's
much more practical now it actually
tells you the kinds of things that you
should be doing and the kinds of stories
that we should be putting out there the
kind of stuff that people really care
about and the way that they're going to
share so open up your ears and let pull
enter your brain for the next 30 minutes
it'll be well worth it Paul Adams
hi everybody
so I'm Paul I work in the product
development team of Facebook you know
and last year that meant working on a
lot of some of the stuff you saw earlier
with a very talented team of engineers
designers product managers I'm going
forward I'm gonna actually work a lot
more with a lot of you guys with clients
and agencies to help you understand
social behavior so a lot of the things
that I've studied over the past few
years are how people interact the
relationships we have identity a lot of
these complex topics today you know Ian
teach by telling you the talk they're
not gonna give I'm gonna specifically
focus on one thing which is content and
sharing and the reason is because I
think there's gonna be really helpful
for you guys because you know we know
that many of you kind of get the why why
Facebook is important and now we're kind
of getting to the how like what should I
build you know Mike showed us the about
the evolved version of pages earlier I'm
sure the question in many of your heads
is what content do I create like what
should be in those page posts that's
gonna make me successful so I want to
start by giving you guys a sense of
scale and perspective and to help you to
understand how we think about product
design at Facebook you know people get
obsessed with now and what's happening
now and technologies that are evolving
now and actually where we care much more
about people on social behavior and this
is a scale that we think about and
what's interesting I think it's
important to understand this in order to
understand why people share things if
you look at all these - all these
technologies all these media
technologies basically the same thing
happened every time they were invented
and that is that people applied the ways
they work with existing media to the new
medium I think the same thing is
happening today so if you look back at
the printing press you know when the
printing press was invented basically
people made Latin manuscripts because
that's what monks made right they took
the existing media and applied it to the
new medium same was true for telephone
link it's my favorite example Alexander
Graham Bell who invented the telephone
his pitch was that the telephone as a
broadcasting device right you could put
you could basically put it on a stand at
a religious ceremony or a music event
that people could dial in and kind of
gather around the phone and
like listen in right in everyone could
dial in and hear the sermon I'm saying
what's true I'm sure you're familiar
with these recent examples cinema was
visual newspapers TV first TV shows or
films plays stay was true for the web we
copied and pasted our print materials
and I feel like the same thing is
happening on the social web right where
people are taking the predominant medium
which is TV and trying to apply the way
they work with TV to Facebook but it's
very very different because Facebook is
about people and it's about
relationships so the problem one of the
problems with this is that when people
think about Facebook and think about how
to be successful if they focus on
sharing why we think about sharing and
to me this is actually fundamentally the
wrong way to think about this because
sharing is a means to an end nobody
turns right into the friend and says hey
what did you do last night and they say
you know I was online sharing no one
says that I hope you guys say that right
we don't say that but it's not natural
right sharing is a means to an end we
say stuff like I was talking to John we
were instant messaging I was checking
out the photos and the dinner party last
weekend or there are the kind of things
that we discuss and really you know the
the kind of underlying motivation that
people need to understand is not sharing
it's talking and if you think about
these like a comment share think about
these actions they're really just
features right there really just ways to
help people talk and if you look at like
and look at comment there's a lot more
likes and a lot more comments than
shares right and that's because sharing
is hard it's not really natural right
it's something that's helping us do
something else so if you're thinking
about sharing and focusing on sharing
you're gonna find it really hard to
motivate people to share but if you
think about talking I know this
distinction is very subtle but I think
it's very important if you think about
this and think about talking right so
why we talk how we talk who we talk to
you're gonna find it easier to be
successful because once you understand
the principles the psychological
principles behind this you'll actually
see that it's very easiest our creating
great ideas and push stuff out and start
to see people talk about it so it's what
I'm gonna focus on today for the next 20
minutes or so there's 12 things that I
want to go through which may sound like
a lot or a little depending I think you
know there's a lot of depth to a lot of
them I'm going to cover them pretty
quickly we'll have a Q&A;
but hopefully you know these 12 things
should stand the test of time because
they're based on tons and tons of
research some done by myself and
sometime I the Facebook research team
and a lot of it done by external you
know academics people working in
universities other technology companies
that have published research so a lot of
that you know a lot of research behind
this stuff so should it should kind of
hold water for many years to come
okay so that's the first one why people
talk there are basically four reasons
why people talk the first is to make
life easier second is to build
relationships the third is to help
others and the fourth is to craft our
identity so we talk to make life easier
right this is kind of obvious
communication is hardwired into our
brains it has been you know tens of
thousands of years of evolution have
happened to get us where we are today if
you think back to our ancestors they
survived because they talked to one
another they told each other where their
crops should be planted what the weather
patterns were what animals they could
eat and what animals would eat them
which is very important to know I think
about weather whether it's kind of funny
to me I'm from Ireland where the weather
is the same every single day yet that's
all anyone ever talks about I'm sure you
know first thing you do when you go home
to your hometown someone says you know
it describes the weather I think that's
because it's hardwired into our brains
right because I helped her species
survive and a lot of the things that
motivate us to talk now and you know
consequently share stuff are motivated
by these things that have taken tens of
thousands of years to evolve so here's
an example of a status update by the way
these are real if you want a lesson and
punctuation and grammar this is not you
know don't go on Facebook you can search
your feet and see tons of content you
know which looks a lot like the stuff
I'm going to show you
so here's J and she's saying oMG this
heat my hair is so frizzy smiley face
come on ladies what's the best
conditioner that won't break the bank
right and I'm sure you guys see this all
the time she's talking to make her life
easier right she's turning to friends
and ask them for a recommendation the
second reason we talk is to build
relationships you know this is based on
decades of research and so
psychology conversations send out really
strong social signals I it's funny when
people look at content and Facebook and
look like what has the most likes in the
most comments and try and figure out or
that thing got a lot of comments that
must be good
what in many cases people are failing to
realize people aren't liking the comment
are the content sorry
they were liking the person right they
weren't liking oh my god that's awesome
up status update about what you had for
dinner right they're saying hey I'm here
you know we should catch up right
there's tons of kind of implicit stuff
behind that like people are liking the
other people they're building
relationships but it's not about the
content so you can go down a lot of
incorrect paths I like this example this
is Phil if I'm gonna read the site so
you know you're you know you're getting
old when you get excited to go to
Costco's I love that place and their
five gallon containers of mayo and pad
rooms like haha I love Costco and Matt
is like you can never have enough Mayo
this is what real conversations look
like there's two really important things
here well the first this is actually
kind of three things the first is people
are building the relationship right it's
just a bunch of guys who like Costco and
Mayo turns out talking right now just
building relationship with each other we
do this stuff all the time you guys are
gonna do it over cocktails later so I
hope I'm not making it too paranoid but
if you think about there's just two
things that are that are incredibly
interesting one is they're basically
looking for things in common with Chris
mentioned this earlier when we talk to
you for the first time we look for
things in common and we start talking
about those things because it makes it
easy right so try to help people find
things in common is incredibly powerful
and the second thing is communal
laughter right communal laughter it
builds relationships incredibly quickly
and incredibly powerfully so you need to
figure out how to fit into this
conversation in a really natural way you
know this is obviously great for
Costco's I'm pretty sure it's not on
brand with their marketing plan right
but it's good for them and it's good for
the people that are involved right so
you need to figure out this is being an
incredibly powerful way to get involved
the third reason is that we talk to help
others this is like the flip side of
making life easier right so if people
reach out and ask this question
and guess what people respond like we
see this in the web all the time here's
Jane Wright asking about her frizzy hair
unlike young people are piling in like
Amy's saying she likes Kerastase
Jackie's saying she loves Ozzie 3 minute
miracle and then Erica is basically not
in she's been basically building the
relationship right that second thing by
empathizing right and these are the kind
of conversations that people have
they're talking about brands the fourth
reasons that we talk to craft identity
or identity is quite a complex topic but
basically most conversations are some
form of reputation management so
identity is something that all you guys
need to kind of study and understand the
basics about you know our identities are
constantly refined by the conversations
that we have our values are passed on
from our family that we can choose that
that just happens when we're born you
know but like our society culture the
friends that we associate with our work
colleagues right the conversations we
have define who we are here's a great
example this is Scott who's saying just
bought my first pair of Tom's I love
what they do if I buy a pair they also
give away a pair to charity and then
Giselle is like I love toms too as well
as being generous the guy who started it
is so hot lol he is kind of good-looking
guy a Matthew saying I love toms I have
three pairs Richards saying I got some
for xmas they're so comfy right it's how
people talk so you know this is
obviously fantastic for Toms there's a
bunch of people chiming and all talking
about how great the product is what's
important about this right there they've
associated with like Scott is associated
with Tom's because he thinks that he
feels like it's part of his identity
what's good yeah and you can say Oh
Tom's like charitable right charity
that's misleading right the thing to
think about here is that the brand has a
sense of purpose and you can sell
hammers and nails and you know you're
like well like I said hammers and nails
I can't do something like this but you
can because the reason people are buying
hammers and nails is because they want
to make a beautiful home right so your
sense of purpose is helping people
create a beautiful home
this is true this is gonna be true for
any brand so the four reasons why people
talk so the opportunity for you is how
much you could content that makes
people's life easier
build social bonds allows people to help
each other and helps people craft their
identity that's sort of how people talk
right we know why they talk the four
reasons why they talk they basically
talk through through two things the
first ones obvious you're kind of a
conversation about listening right but
turns out not a lot a lot of us have
been doing that for the last 50 years
and the second one is using many
lightweight interactions and if you
remember anything from this talk please
remember that second one many
lightweight interactions so look at both
of these we talked by listening and
responding this is stating the obvious
right if I talk you got to say something
back like this isn't a conversation
we're having right now you gotta listen
respond listen respond well that looks
like for bronze I think looks a little
bit like this this is soo new Cora
footwear company from Southern
California and basically there's
interesting things going on here I think
this is a good case study because
they're there they're engaged in
listening and responding and listening
and responding right they're not just
like oh oh someone wrote on our wall
quick somebody like write something back
right and then the person was back to
them and like no one's listening and we
see that all the time right people
answered once and assumed that the thing
is done because conversations take time
and they take effort and people often
say to us I can't scale that I have a I
have a huge company it's a global
company
I can't scale that like I hire a bunch
of Community Managers all they do is
complain that they've got too much work
to do and I think that's the wrong way
to think about this problem the right
way to think about it because it's the
only way it's feasible is to make all of
your company responsible for this I know
that's hard logistically I know that
that's hard for many markers to get
their head around because you've gotta
let go right you've got to trust the
people you've employed in the business
are not gonna say something stupid and
are gonna know what to do right but once
they know that your tone of voice wants
to know how to direct queries people can
do it right suppose is an amazing
example of this and they're the first of
many companies that will embrace this
and you guys are gonna have to figure
this out because it's not going away
right these conversations are public and
they're not going away so the second
thing is that we talk through many
lightweight interactions so this is
obvious when you think about building
relationships with people it's through
many lightweight interactions you meet
someone for the first time it's like you
know hey how are you maybe through
friends of friends you meet them again
through friends of friends and you
discovered they like snowboarding so do
you you go snowboarding together with
friends then maybe go snowboarding you
know together just the two of you and
you know these took months and years to
evolve right this is how people have
made relationships and make connections
for thousands and tens of thousands of
years so it makes sense to me your
branding is very new marketing is
actually a very new discipline relative
to the tens of thousands of years it
took us to got here or to get here that
people would do the same right the way
that they they make connections with
brands is the same way they make
connections with people right many
lightweight interactions
that's what conversations look like
that's what relationships look like so
if you think back to scott right and
these guys talking about toms many
lightweight interactions right no one's
writing essays here about like argentina
and kids who need shoes right they're
not even there the arguably the most
famous things about toms but no one's
talking about that right but this is
still a good experience for Toms well
you know this is the only data how i
have today but if you look at the median
number of words in a user post user
comment page post and page comment
they're really small and if you look at
the averages they're actually much
smaller right what can you say in eleven
words how can you say in five words you
can't really say very much but what you
know that's the first thing right small
number words the second thing that's
interesting here is if pages is higher
than users you know so brands are being
a little bit more verbose and people are
which sometimes it's just hard to stop
talking and you know message and you
want to say that extra thing we also
have that and we should mention that but
that's not how conversations happen
right and the further you go from this
the longer your posts the more stuff you
try and say like the further you're
getting from her natural conversations
occur right and people are just not
going to engage they're gonna just shut
up that's not a conversation right the
way to think about this and i think it's
like the biggest opportunity for the
creative community and people aren't
really grappling with it yet as you can
sequence stories
all right you don't to tell a story in
one go you can tell lots and lots of
mini stories you know over time and not
to me is an amazing amazingly cool
creative opportunity because you can
create all sorts of like nonlinear
narratives for example right some of the
best movies we've watched are non-linear
narratives so a better strategy for me
is multiple sequence posts
so that's that's how people talk the
questions for you guys are how might you
create content that encourages dialogue
and how might you create content
encourages lightweight interaction the
third section we know who I am you know
how is who people talk to and again
there's two things here we talk mostly
to our strong ties our closest friends
and family and they're those numbers are
very small and we also talk to people
like ourselves so this is a that's one
of the first one we you know we talk
myself and what the people are closest
to this is a picture a diagram that I
show a lot and we could spend an hour or
we can spend a day on this right this is
how our social networks are structured
how our relationships are structured
there's tons of stuff online that you
can look up and learn about this there's
a couple of things that I want to that I
want to kind of draw your attention to
one is that most people is what most
people's social network looks like most
people have 4 to 6 groups of friends and
they're independent and they form over
life stages and that's probably true for
most of you family you know where you
went to college your hometown where you
live now where you lived before those
people in those groups don't know each
other what's also interesting is the
number of people in the groups is really
small it's typically less than ten if
you look at who people talk to you're
already reduced from hundreds of people
that you know to a very small number of
people in these groups that you care
about 80% of our conversations are to
the same four to five people right
eighty percent to the same four to five
people that's true for Facebook and it's
true for all media right there are tons
of studies where phones who people call
right there's lots not the data we talk
to the same people over and over and
over again and those are the people that
were emotionally closest to so if you
think about influence and how influence
happens and when people see you know
who's commenting or who's pushing stuff
out into the world and they're in their
network right they are most influenced
by the people they're closest to and
it's been told and we've been very in a
very kind of infatuated with this idea
of influencers right that there are
these overly connected overly
influential people in society and most
research almost all really good research
studies in this in the last ten years
have shown that that's not true right
there exceptions when it is true
but in most cases most people are more
influenced by the people that are
closest to and those numbers are really
small I'm gonna go back to reach because
probably some of you guys are probably
freaking out going oh my god what 50
people that's not good
the second thing is that we talk most
often to people like ourselves is called
homophony it's one of the most
established patterns in social science
we you know we like to think we're
unique and we're individual let me go
and like we're diverse sets of friends
right that's not the way it works we're
connected and we talk to people like
ourselves this is true there's so much
creatures in this across age gender
culture right this is just one of the
one of the kind of attributes of being
human and if you look at this right what
that means is that the people in each
group are similar to the person in the
middle so my groups are friends my
friends from Dublin are similar to me my
friends from I lived in London for a
long time my friends from London are
similar to me my friends in San
Francisco and are similar to me what
that means is that they're also similar
to each other right if both these groups
are both similar to me it means are
similar to each other and that means if
you create really great content for me
it's also very likely to be interesting
to my friends right because they're like
me and if it's interesting to my friends
it's also very likely to be interesting
to their friends and this is how things
spread right forget going viral right
this is how things spread naturally
organically because content is really
well targeted and really well well you
know the create it's created really well
so you can reach tens of thousands
hundreds of thousands and even millions
of people by creating great content and
targeting to the right people so you
know how might you create content that
will be shared amongst close friends and
how you create content that will be
shared amongst people who are similar to
each other so the last thing I want to
talk to you guys about which is probably
that one of the most interesting is is
what what do people talk about right I'm
gonna make you guys really
self-conscious I know we basically talk
about four things we talk about personal
experiences other people which people
are very worried about that what we talk
about other people what's around us and
we talk about feelings not facts
the top to account for about 70% of our
conversations as an anthropologist
called Robin Dunbar has done fantastic
research on this so personal experiences
and other people are about 70% of our
conversations so let's look at each of
these we talk about our personal
experiences right this is kind of
obvious here is Antonio just had the
best time at Six Flags with my kids
right and Six Flags is a very
experiential brand you might argue and
my brand isn't very experiential but you
got to think about how your brand will
naturally fit with recounting personal
memories right that's why timeline is so
powerful timeline for users and timeline
for brands right because it's it's
mapped to recounting personal memories
and you can think about cars are a great
example to think about right we all can
recount the car of our childhood right
we remember the car and we associated
with events and relationships and
building friendships right and you got
to think about how that's true for your
brand and how people will will relate to
that the second thing is that we talk
about other people and people get very
upset when I say this because they think
that we're all complaining about
everyone else all the time thankfully
that's not true the vast majority this
is neutral to positive it's basically
people talking about other people and
this is has social norms form right I
basically I'm talking to a friend of
mine who's telling me that like oh you
know I met Jane last night she was at
the party oh my god you won't believe
what she did right and subconsciously
I'm thinking do not do whatever he says
Jane does right and that's how social
norms forum we kind of learn as we go
along about what's appropriate what
behavior is appropriate you know so
talking to other people is actually
incredibly positive thing and if you
think about gossip gossip is actually an
incredibly positive thing because it
helps us understand how to behave here's
an example I made this brand up so you
can see why I'm not a brand marketer
it's arguably the worst brand Keowee
hair magic
it's a competitor to Ozzie 3 minute
miracle so um like they're tapping into
something interesting here right so like
if if you know Jane is having problems
with a frizzy hair coach and kiwi hair
magic can say you know Coachella's on
like people are freaking out about their
frizzy hair because it hates and desert
which friend gave you the best tip
right and this is actually not very well
I'm not a copywriter either all the
other stuff all the other examples are
realist when I made up but you can look
at the opportunity here people can draw
in their friends right so a me can say
my friend Kelly Winters likes this you
know Kelly can say Kelly can drag Fred
into the conversation right and so
people have been brought into something
that's that they care about
not because of kiwi hair magic or
Coachella but because their friends are
there right so all heck Kiwi hair magic
are doing is facilitating a conversation
amongst friends right and that's
obviously a good thing and it's
obviously and this is related to their
brand but I'm not advocating that you
just get people talking about all sorts
of random stuff on your Facebook page
so the next thing is that we talk about
what is around us this is this is
fascinating to me even close friends we
basically just talk about the stuff in
our world in our immediate world are
tons a lot of conversations think it's
the majority of conversations are
basically cued by our current
environment and there's loes a great
Studies on this what you know one of
them is a study but music CDs where they
they basically brought people to
research brought people in then they
they left for 10 minutes and study the
conversation and when they put music CDs
in the room people talked about not the
music CDs but the best gig they ever
went to
you know the favorite the favorite
brands and so on this is you know we
don't really know we're gonna figure
this out you know what does this mean
for Facebook certainly newsfeed is a big
part of this it means it's important for
newsfeed and getting a news feed and
your mic talk to it about reach
generator earlier and you know another
way to do that because people have
limited time and attention so we can't
serve everything to everybody as to
think about how ads and the particular
page posts and sponsored stories are
away to cue conversations another thing
to think about is retail I'm sorry
retail mobile like this is a retail
example but how do you get people who
have their phones in a pocket how do you
get them to talk about this stuff when
they're out and about so the last thing
I want to talk about is we talk about
feelings not facts right so things that
a motor emotionally kind of resonant
visceral surprise anger happiness those
are the things that drive conversations
not facts this is hard for marketers to
understand kind of get their head around
because they want to push facts we're
objectively better than the competition
and that's what they want to spread
right but people don't share that stuff
they read it but they don't share it if
you look at the most shared items on
Facebook in 2011 number one is obviously
the devastating earthquake in Japan but
it's emotional right people are saying
oh my God look at it then and look at it
now right they're not sharing like facts
about about it
the next thing what teachers really want
to tell parents third most popular know
your zodiac sign hasn't changed
fourth parents don't dress your girls
like Trump's father-daughter dance
medley at funeral dog mourns the death
of Navy SEAL killed in Afghanistan and
my favorite don't stop at seven you'll
freak when you see the new Facebook
alright this is what people shared these
are emotional they're not factual you
got to think about emotions not facts so
these are the opportunities how can you
create content that helps people talk
about others helps people talk about
what is around them and focuses on
feelings and not facts so I gave you
guys 12 things to think about that's a
ton and all these are really deep I want
to I want to end by giving you the four
that I think are most important and you
can build a strategy around these for
help people build relationships that's
what we care about no brand is more
interesting to us than our friends no ad
is more interesting to us than our
friends so help people build
relationships with each other create
lightweight interactions that is how
conversations happen not deep immersive
apps stop building these huge richly
branded heavy apps that you think people
are gonna sit in front of for twenty
minutes they're not right that's not her
conversations happen
lightweight interactions over time
optimize for strong ties people who are
closest to because that's who we talked
to and then you know look at the
feelings and not facts and they're the
four so I'm gonna end by putting up all
12 I'm gonna have a little bit of a QA
but I just like to thank you for
listening
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