• by Cory Treffiletti , Featured Contributor, July 7, 2010

Is it just me -- or are the majority of innovations in this current phase of the Web all about ego?

Checking in, tweeting, posting your status, and sharing your activities with friends are a collection of very ego-driven experiences. In some cases you may be sharing information that others will find relevant, but sharing what you're thinking at that very moment or what bar you just popped into is rarely of value. I can't throw stones, since I do just as much of this as the next guy, but what's really the value here -- and how can marketers take advantage of it?

It all comes back to the ego. Tapping into the ego is one of the two most important things that marketers do. All marketing either satisfies a core human need or makes that human feel special by association. Once you get past basic needs, ego is pretty much all you have left.

The ego is what drives most impulse buying, while pure human need is what drives most considered purchasing. When I hit on these topics a few weeks back , I had an epiphany of my own. Human nature is social; when we see others doing something interesting, we want to join in. The same goes for shopping or activities. When we see others become interested in a product or service, it intrigues us and makes us want to know what we can do in a similar fashion.

That's why word-of-mouth advertising is so effective: it speaks to our basic human needs to fit in and align with our peers. It's also why peer pressure is so strong, especially at early ages when you are still trying to find your way. Peer pressure is the biggest example of the ego at work, needing to find other egos with similar priorities.

Marketers have known this for many years. It's also why the Internet is so powerful, since it allows the consumer to quickly, with very little effort, have insight into the egos of like-minded people. That's why retargeting works so well, and social retargeting (which I hear about a lot because my wife works in that area with Media 6 Degrees) is even more effective.

The concept that "birds of a feather flock together" speaks directly to the fact that like-minded egos will likely engage in similar activities, and they want to know what everyone else is up to! Whether you tell the consumer "your friends are doing it" or not, that kind of targeting taps into that innate understanding and drives a stronger ROI.

Marketers also need to find ways to tap into the ego of their consumers and share their experiences. Sites like Blippy are simple and brilliant, because they project the ego of shopping from one consumer to another. People want to know what their friends are buying and why. It's a purely ego-driven experience, because everyone wants to be first!

If your friends are buying something, you tend to want to know what they're buying. This factor is also referred to as "keeping up with the Joneses." If they buy a nice car, you may want a nice car. If their Christmas lights are out of control but cool, yours will likely go big next year, too. It's simple human nature.

How are your marketing efforts tapping into the ego? How are you pressuring the audience into looking you up and learning about your brand?