Understanding Digital Customer Behavior

Understanding digital behavior has never known greater importance. As it evolves, we need to appreciate its velocity and impact.

For example on Facebook conversations lose momentum in an hour, give or take. The reason for this is because people consume until they create. As they create, expectations shift as characteristics of narcissism take over.

What about Instagram? Allow me to share some revealing behavioral stats that will make you say “Wow.”

According to a fascinating article in Photo District News (PDN), writer Kathleen Hay explains how Statigram, a third-party analytics tool for Instagram, tracked the number of photos tagged “selfie,” (i.e. social slang for self-portrait) and at 11 p.m. PST on December 28, 2012, the number of selfies numbered at a noteworthy 5.5 million.

In fact, the “egosystem” wouldn’t be the same without the “me” in social media. At the same time, photos tagged ‘me’ completely eclipsed “selfie” with a staggering 72.6 million self-portraits.

Add these instagram statistics together and you start to get the picture of just how prominent the “egosystem” is becoming.

In the article, Hay introduces us to Dr. Jean M. Twenge, Ph.D., a Professor of Psychology; author of Generation Me and co-author of The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement. The titles alone convey that connected consumerism is nothing like the conventional customers you once knew.

To better understand the crux of selfies and the digital “me,” Twenge explains that at the core of narcissism is this invention or aspiration that people are better or more important than in reality. In the digital realm however, perception is reality.

Agree or disagree, this is your connected customer. And in many ways, you and those you know are among them.

How can you re-imagine your engagement strategies to align with and inspire the “me” in social media? How does — or how can — your brand evoke an experience that elicits self-expression? And how will your brand become part of the “egosystem” and create a gravitational pull for others to orbit?