Game theory & social media marketing (4): Conclusions

[Part 4 of 4: Game theory & social media: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3]

No, I’m no super lady, I don’t have no game whatsoever,
I put my high heels on and see how that goes, yeah

Pauline, Sucker for love

Ask a mathematician why they like maths, and they will tell you that mathematics gives a definite yes or no. There is beauty in clarity. And, everyone likes to feel that they understand and have control over what is happening in their world. This feeling of certainty is reflected in the bottom two rows of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: physiological and safety needs.

Tapping into fear and belonging

That said, we also love variety and surprise, which is the most popular information shared on social media. We crave new stimulus which is why we love games. We love the idea of chance or fortune transforming our lives for the better, and surely if we learn the rules, then we will succeed. And, that is why marketing has such a pull on us. Marketers tell us that we will have improved lives if we do/buy/or have what they are selling, and, marketers themselves will have improved lives too if we do/buy/or have what they are selling.

There are so many ways to market something, this link has 52 types of marketing strategies. The most effective, of course, aims at the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs – safety – which is why fear quite often drives news and coupled with specific instructions gives a compliant society.

Tapping into belonging is another way to market, which is why the connection economy and building friendship with your customers is gaining so much traction as a marketing strategy.

Modelling emotion and what-ifs

Modelling human emotion is impossible to do with game theory especially on social media, a fluid, still unknown, type of communication. We will never quite know who our audience is. We may target our demographic, but if they retweet or share something outside of that, then you never exactly know who is looking at your content, or how they will react to it. All game theory can do is offer interesting and potentially useful partial explanations to model a selection of what-ifs scenarios when employing different strategies.

In the last post (part 3), we looked at various game theory strategies from the aggressive to the altruistic, and saw that people generally behave like the people around them (hawk-dove) and that Kermit was in a bit of hurry to get together with his girl, which caused him to behave passive-aggressively, and probably not get what he wanted.

 Don’t be like Kermit

Game theory is a tool for social media marketing and the best application of it is recording trial and error attempts (with statistical significance) whilst using our emotional intelligence.

Be aware of your emotions and triggers (your personal competence) so you don’t get involved in a big wrangle either privately, which could damage a relationship, or publicly, which might be retweeted everywhere and could wreck your brand or reputation.  Even in the mathematics of game theory we need to understand other players moods and motives (social competence) and not assume anything. We need to ask for more clarification, so that when we do make a move, we do so with clarity and certainty that we are doing the right thing, and as any mathematician would tell you if you asked them, there is beauty in clarity for it gives us certainty and a sense of control, things which are harder to come by in our ever changing world.