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Amanda Kramer: Every episode, we have an LBIdea or a key takeaway, and the key takeaway here is that consumers have more power than ever with social media and the information economy. And it's more important than ever for branding and marketing to be an authentic and mutual conversation between consumers and companies, where not only are valuable products and services exchanged, but also valuable content.

Welcome to the Leeds Business Insights Podcast, featuring expert analysis to help you stand out from the herd. I'm your host, Amanda Kramer. We are thrilled to be discussing the intersection between technology and consumer experiences with Alixandra Barasch, associate professor at the Leeds School of Business.

Welcome to Leeds Business Insights, Alix, and thank you so much for being here today.

Alix Barasch: Thank you so much for having me.

Kramer: So, Alix, social media and advertising have converged, creating a relatively new experience for consumers. Tell us more.

Barasch: This is a very exciting area for marketers. And there are few different things to touch on here. And the first is the core of marketing — how social media has allowed marketers and companies to just be more targeted in the way that they reach consumers. There's going to be a lot of benefits of that, but we just, we have so much more data than we ever had before, which allows us to understand consumers and their needs and their preferences and their interests. It allows us to be able to reach those people.

And I think the most exciting aspect of the social media space on this dimension is that you can also observe networks. And you can imagine that learning about an individual is great, but learning about how that individual relates to other people and the types of people that they're friends with, it's just an extra layer of information that helps us target individuals, according to what they're excited about.

So, I see this as being a win-win, because if you are receiving communications from marketers that are more relevant and interesting and personalized to you, that's good for consumers. Of course, it's good for companies and advertisers as well, which we could come back to. That's one-key space.

I always tell my students, "There's many benefits of social media marketing. The biggest one is targeting." Other ways that the convergence of social media and advertising has influenced the customer experience, I'd say, is from the type of content that you get. Like I already mentioned, it's more personalized. It's going to be more interactive, with a closer connection between the content and the actual ability to have a conversion or an action from the consumer, perhaps, a sale. But it doesn't have to be a sale. It can be all sorts of engagement.

And then, how it allows communications around communities. That's the other big piece of the social media and advertising space, is not just creating brand communities, which has been done forever, but it's just more sophisticated now. But, also, the role of influencers in those communities — people that we look up to, but are not necessarily directly connected with the company. That has had a big influence on the way that consumers receive content, believe content. So, it's, really, just this dynamic landscape that's changing very quickly, but is a fun time to be in marketing.

Kramer: Absolutely, a really exciting time to be in marketing. And let's talk about a couple points that you just brought up there, Alix, while we're on it. The first would be around engagement. You mentioned that securing a sale is not necessarily the end result at all times. Tell us more.

Barasch: Totally, the classic theories about how you move consumers through the purchase funnel apply here. But we're just getting more sophisticated on how we measure it, you know. You can imagine a consumer route doesn't know anything about a brand or what they have to offer. You first have to create some level of awareness, and that can be measured through things like clicks and other types of actions and engagements, and just watching contents, you know, stopping the scroll and looking at it for a little bit longer.

That's already an important metric to capture, but it doesn't translate directly to sales force. You have to help consumers understand what you have to offer and what your competitive advantage is. And so, there, you might have even more interactive and personalized content that directly relates to that consumer's interests, or what they've stopped and scrolled on before.

So, you can imagine on your social media, maybe you've seen it where you get, of course, relevant products that you've already seen, but you're getting deeper and deeper as you, kind of, scroll to the right on something in particular, like, clothing or... for me, it's all kids clothing these days, based on my interests. And so, you're able to see how people are forming their consideration sets we say, just engaging with content more deeply, but still, it doesn't convert into a sale. And the next layer would be getting people over the hump towards purchase.

And so, each of those that hierarchy of metrics is important. Moving consumers from one step to the next is always going to be important. You know, we used to make phone calls and see how our advertising did. And now, we can just get more concrete metrics at every step of the way.

Kramer: Absolutely. Alix, switching gears for a moment, from the company landscape to the consumer lens, one thing that you study within the consumer economy is what makes customers enjoy their experience. Tell us more about what you've learned here.

Barasch: Yeah. I think, this is one of those important win-wins for companies, for consumers, because so much of what I study is about the utility that consumers get from going through their experiences. It could be your experience engaging with some online communication or an advertisement that you're looking at on TikTok or on social media. It could also be how you go through a store environment or a retail experience. Or, more specifically, I mean, what I oftentimes look at in my work is the experiences that we choose to go through in terms of service, tourist experiences, travel experiences.

If we can make consumers enjoy those experiences more, they'll want to repeat purchase, they'll want to spread word of mouth. And that's where I talk about the win-win. Consumers are happier, and companies are also happier. So, that's where a lot of my work focuses.

Kramer: Great. Well, and tell us more. How can companies and marketers tap into these learnings with messaging, visuals, other mediums?

Barasch: Yeah. I've focused a lot of my attention on how companies can create experiences that make consumers more immersed or more engaged in the experience. So, in particular, the actions that consumers can take, creating content or taking photos or interacting with the brand, as they go through that experience. And it has upsides and downsides, and it's really important to consider. But overall, my work shows that there is a very strong benefit for consumers’ enjoyment, if they are becoming more engaged by, let's say, taking notes or writing on social media about the experiences as they go through it.

If they're taking photos of the experience, it affects not just their moments, as they're going through it, but also their retrospection, so, how they remember the experience itself.

Kramer: So, Alix, you've had some interesting findings related to the pros and cons to generating content during a consumer's experience with a product, company, or service. Tell us more.

Barasch: My early work in this topic was specifically focused on the photo-taking experience. And that came from a period, where our smartphones were giving us costless photo-taking. We could take as many photos as we wanted. It was just exploding in terms of the way that people were interacting with their travel, with the services, and with the retail environment.

And so, we started with just the basic question of how this action itself affects people's experiences. And you can imagine that it could go both ways. And it does in different contexts. So, when you're taking photos, you have to stop and look through a screen. A lot of people at the time, when we started this work, maybe a decade ago, They were very worried that photo-taking was ruining our lives. They were all, basically, you know, looking through our screens, instead of being immersed in the actual experience, that it was affecting our social relationships.

We came in also with that perspective. We were interested in documenting that, and ran dozens of studies and experiments and correlational studies. And what we kept finding was, actually, something that was the opposite. Showing that people, when they look through the visual field of a camera and take pictures of their environment, it actually makes them more engaged in that experience. It is very relevant for companies who want to create immersive, enjoyable experiences to encourage photo-taking, instead of discouraging it.

So, one thing that might come up in your mind is, "How does the reason that you're taking photos, how does that play a role here?" So, if you are taking pictures for yourself or for your own personal memories, we find that the photo-taking process is pretty uniformly positive. Where there can be a little bit of a backfiring effect is when you get overly focused on the sharing process. When you're thinking about how your photos will look to others, how many likes or comments or retweets you'll get, that's when people start to get, what we call, self-presentational concern or anxiety during the experience.

This is where I caution people, not to not ever share photos or, you know, talk about their experiences to others, but just to really try to decouple it — to try to go through an experience without the self-presentational concerns top of mind, to try to think about taking photos or creating content for the self, and to do the sharing process after the experience ends, because that's where you get the benefits, but without the drawbacks of it, interfering with the experience as you're going through it.

There are other things that matter here as well. The memories that you create, when you're more immersed in content, that is visual, that will actually enhance your memories of, let's say, your museum experience or the artifacts that you see. But where your attention is focused on visual content, you're going to be less focused on auditory, taste cues. Any other information coming to your senses will get a little bit less attention.

And as a result, we show that, you know, if you're the type of experience where the primary content is more auditory, like a concert, that phototaking can be really harmful in that place, because you're focused on visual details. Maybe if you're at a Taylor Swift concert, it's okay, because there's a lot of visual stuff going on there. But, if it's where you just want to focus on the music and the sounds, that's where photo-taking can actually be detracting from it.

Kramer: So, Alix, with the introduction of 5G, we may see some interesting impacts. What are your thoughts here?

Barasch: Yeah. Anytime you have richer content, it's going to, in general, be more immersive for consumers. And 5G technology is offering, of course, just the basics with faster speeds and bandwidth. That's going to mean that the content can be more detailed, more immersive, richer in the types of content that's delivered.

At the same time, you know, it's not without its downsides. And I think, here you have to really think about, when is immersive content more or less helpful? So, people are talking a lot about 5G technology as being able to deliver this content on our mobile devices. Wherever we are, you know, we can, of course, be more immersed as we're waiting for the bus, instead of just on our laptops at home.

And so, that's good and bad. On the one hand, all the good stuff about being immersed everywhere should play out in a positive direction. But it's not always the case that consumers are ready to hear messages. If they're, if they're going through something else, it could actually be distracting. And that's where the divided attention, there's a lot of research on how multitasking is actually detrimental for consumers.

And so, you don't want to necessarily deliver that content, when somebody's, you know, thinking about a doctor's appointment or something else. And so, we'll have to get better at delivering content when it matters or when consumers are ready for it and able to embrace that content.

To go back to the positives, another thing that people are very excited about is the possibilities for augmented and virtual reality. And that's where I see a lot of opportunities for brands and for companies, because you're trying to create actions from consumers and, ultimately, hopefully, a sale or a decision.

And when you are providing more information, that's almost always better. And if you can create content that allows people to, for example, see how a particular product would look in their living room or, you know, make them able to see a way that the product or service will benefit them in the moment, that's going to be a good thing as well for both parties. I can get better feedback as a consumer. I can get more information in the info-search process.

And so, I see that as being another positive of 5G, but with the caveat that reducing frictions is only good when consumers are ready to process it, ready to act. And this is going to also lead us to just better tracking of conversions, better data and metrics and analytics as well. So, it's going to be a mutual back-and-forth conversation that will have to take consumers' needs and preferences in mind, in addition to the company's preferences.

Kramer: Absolutely. Thank you for that rich explanation, Alix. Let's take a turn into this notion of self as a brand, a place where photography and technology have allowed us to go. How have those advances given consumers and/or influencers a focus that is outside of a company's direct brand or marketing strategy?

Barasch: Yeah, that's been an exciting aspect of photos. And I love thinking about how having these devices in our pocket, how has this changed the way that we go through our lives? So, we already talked a little bit about how being able to create content affects enjoyment and immersion during the experience. But it's also allowed us to curate our identities, curate our lives for others. And that's what you meant by self as a brand.

So, it's an exciting time, where we have to also make a lot of decisions as consumers, as influencers, and think about, you know, when are we going to share a very professional or posed moment versus a more candid or authentic moment. And, you know, there's no one social media or type of technology that's, I'd say, better or worse than the others. It's really just about the selection effects, where, I think, certain types of consumers, younger consumers, consumers that are more technologically savvy, are able to embrace and engage with more varied and diverse formats, more interactive content, like on TikTok. Gen Z, of course, has embraced these new-social medias more than older consumers. And that doesn't mean that the other technologies aren't useful, too. It's just it's finding out which technology is the one where you want to both create the content and share the content.

Kramer: So, for those that work at a company or a brand that are listening, what are ways in which they can leverage consumer-generated content without losing the narrative of what they want the brand to be?

Barasch: Yeah. That's a very interesting question and something I talk to companies about a lot, because there's, sort of, this trade off or duality that you have to navigate. You want to let consumers speak for you. In order to do that, you have to be able to let go. You have to be able to not have full control over your content. And that is the way that you get the most genuine, authentic content that consumers are sharing and, really, believe in the product and the brand. And other consumers are able to judge that very well.

This is something that I have found a lot in my work. We are quite good at reading genuine cues. Even when we don't know about the existence of incentives, or whether you've been paid for content, we can see that in the way that people communicate from their verbal and nonverbal cues. It's really interesting.

So, you have to be able to let go. You have to let it be purely genuine, because even the best influencers, the best sales people, you still know when there's a motive or an incentive to sell behind that. So, you have to, you have to be able to let authenticity shine through.

Kramer: Absolutely. Thank you for all of that information, Alix. And within that, you had an interesting finding related to authenticity in posing versus candid photos. What did you learn?

Barasch: This idea also came from observing the social media landscape. And at most of my research starts with just some interesting observation about what are people doing and whether they're calibrated or not, whether they're doing it right. And, you know, most photos, and I think most people can see this from looking at their feeds or just think about it a little bit, most photos are very posed, because, like we were talking about earlier, people are thinking about how they look to others. They are thinking about self-presentation and impression management. And so, they want to curate their identity in a way that is controlled, in the same way that brands were thinking about it, as well, in terms of who talks about them.

So, as we're positioning ourselves, we're creating content that, you know, is going to be trying to signal something to others. And what we noticed in this social media landscape is that 95%, even closer to 97, 98% of photos are usually posed. And the little of remaining percentage of photos that are more candid, we thought, "Maybe this, actually, is a way to stand out or to signal something about almost a costly signal that you don't care too much, that you're willing to post a photo that shows that you're willing to let go, that you're willing to share a moment that's more genuine, or isn't fully self-presentational.”

And so, we started with that observation, really dug into a lot of different social media to study this, and found that, indeed, consistent with our intuition that the candid photos, actually, are perceived more favorably by others. They make people more… seem more likable. We are more likely to want to be friends with people who post more candid photos.

And this is driven by perceptions of sincerity or authenticity. Candid photos give people a glimpse into something real, like, give a glimpse into, you know, maybe your true personality that's not contrived and staged in the same way that post photos come off. And that has a lot of downstream positive consequences for consumers.

One place that I will say it doesn't actually pan out as being universally positive is in professional context. Like with LinkedIn, people don't react as positively to candid photos. That's a place where we expect the posed presentational, almost staged photos, because we're trying to share our accomplishments or our professional demeanors.

So, it definitely depends. It always depends on the type of social network and what you're trying to signal. But given that people are always going to appreciate somebody being more genuine and sincere, I can really stand by the fact that candid is going to be better in a lot of different contexts.

Kramer: I love that. So, Alix, how can listeners on the podcast today think critically about how they're being marketed to?

Barasch: Yeah. That's good to, kind of, turn around and think about your perspective as a consumer. And this is something I, really, push my students on as well when I'm teaching, because you want to be thinking about how marketers and firms can use these insights. But we're also the consumers in, you know, almost every other moment of our lives. And so, you can take the evidence and turn it around, and, sort of, say, "Okay, well how would I deal with this?"

So, I think there are a few steps. Of course, you want to start by thinking about the type of message that you're receiving. Is it cognitive-informational message? Is it an emotional message? Who is the source of the message? Are they credible? Are they trustworthy? Brands can be trustworthy, influencers can be trustworthy, but you want to think about whether that's the case.

You also, of course, want to consider how your own biases play a role here. And there are a lot of biases that come into mind here. So, the way that we're influenced by emotional ads that speak to our feelings, both happiness, but also on the, on the negative-emotion side, if it’s plain tapping into our fear, our guilt, or sense of urgency, it's another important one that comes into play. A lot of marketers will use scarcity tactics to try to make you feel like you're going to miss out on something and something's limited time. We see that all the time and I really push consumers to, sort of, take a step back and try to not let their emotions take over when they're making decisions.

And also, a really powerful force in our ability to be influenced is social proof. And so, that's going to, of course, come from any communication of how other consumers are acting. And we care about norms. And we care about, you know, fitting in. And we care about compliance.

And so, you want to make sure that you're not being overly drawn in by hearing that everybody does something. Or, not everybody, necessarily, but people you care about. What are influencers doing, influencers who might have been paid or incentivized to promote some product or service?

So, taking a step back in general is always a good perspective in many aspects of our lives. But, certainly, with marketing messages in the same way that we, you know, think about how to persuade others, we can turn it around and think about how these things that we do to others affects the way that we're persuaded by them. So, those are some tactics to, kind of, keep in mind some biases that are very common and influential.

Kramer: Every episode, we have an LBIdea or a key takeaway, and the key takeaway here is that consumers have more power than ever with social media and the information economy. And it's more important than ever for branding and marketing to be an authentic and mutual conversation, between consumers and companies, where not only are valuable products and services exchanged, but also valuable content.

Barasch: We want to connect with others. And especially, as we're alone a lot of the time, looking at our devices, connections can come with other consumers. And seeing that they're sharing authentic moments in their days, it can come with the actual connections and interactions with brands or with companies. That can fulfill a lot of our very basic human needs.

And none of these insights are novel in terms of psychology. They're just, you know, we have to consider how the technologies are changing the way that we do these things, the way that we present ourselves, the way that we learn about information from others and from companies.

And so, authenticity, in my view, is always going to be a winning strategy. How to do that is changing. How to signal that you care about that depends on the segment, it depends on the technology. But it's always going to be what people care about.

Kramer: Very helpful to give us a framework for thinking critically about the content that we're receiving, how we're being marketed to, and how we make our decisions.

Well, thank you so much, Alix, for joining us today.

Barasch: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.

Kramer: Thank you again for listening to Leeds Business Insights. Don’t miss a single episode, subscribe to Leeds Business Insights wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find more information about our podcast series at leeds.ly/LBIpodcast.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, you may also enjoy Creative Distillation, an entrepreneurship research podcast from the Leeds School of Business. Check it out at pod.link/creativedistillation.

Leeds Business Insights podcast is a production of the Leeds School of Business and is produced by University FM. We’ll see you next time.