The term “selective benefits” is usually thought of in relation to programs such as welfare as in this definition of selective Benefits:
Selective benefits are provided on the basis of a claimant’s income and circumstance. An example of a selective benefit is the Child Tax Credit.
We are not all treated alike by the other humans. For example numerous studies have shown “attractive people are more likely to receive altruistic behavior.” Humans being a murderous lot, intelligence is a true selective benefit that may keep you away from being the one “naturally selected.”
Business leaders refer to selective benefits as differentiation. Reward the high performers! And in business benefits that are transparent, such as hours worked, are usually not the first place you see differentiation. Salary and monetary rewards are the first areas to differentiate as this prevents problems with other employees (This varies by role of course, commissions are typically public info between a sales team to motivate others, but that is a different post).
But what of selective benefits in web applications? The differentiated web app I think of first is slashdot with its famous meta-moderation system. Karma points are awarded to those who contribute to the community in the slashcode application. Listening to Jeff Bates & Rob Malda speak at MSU in 2007 they commented that “if you put a number on anything it will become a competition between users.”
And we are so obsessed with the number of followers we have, and others have, on social networks that we have sites to measure, manage and rank each other! And we treat these people differently because, well, having 3,686,570 followers as Ashton Kutcher does right now means he has HUGE influence!
From the perspective of the person who enjoys these differentiations, they also receive selective benefits like free admission to conferences, access to other influencers, acceptance into good old boy clubs, etc.
Frequently the alternative to a selective benefit is a monetary expense. You can join an association or buy a house in that exclusive area. If you can’t get a pass to an event, you can usually buy a ticket (but not always). In other words, fame and access in real life and in social media amounts to selective benefits that have a real monetary value to the person who possesses them. So technically speaking, this is more than a game.
I can’t help but notice that flickr, the nicest social network I know of, does NOT show follower counts on your photo pages. Nor do they make it easy to see how many of your photos make it into explore. You need another app for that.
So to improve a blog or social network, should you make “rank” easily visible to everyone knowing the people who rank the highest will enjoy selective benefits that have monetary value? Does this build community? Or does that even matter and the bottom line is monetizing the site?
What about things like recommendations and testimonials? Should you confer additional site access to “verified” accounts?
Should social media do more to extend “selective benefits” to individuals based on rank (followers, explore, interestingness, page views, linkbacks, etc…)? Aren’t we supposed to be “levelling up” as the kids say?
Thinking…
Ed: You have me thinking, too, so thanks. One thing that bugs me about the numbers obsession is that it makes the same mistake that is made when assessing traditional media. The fact that 3 million people have opted in to receive Ashton's tweets doesn't mean anything about his influence. It says something about his reach — but even that is suspect, since people can opt in but not pay any attention to tweets. Get your "that's what she said" ready. It's not size that matters. It is who those followers are. What they care about. If Ashton were to tweet about a great experience (or better yet a great deal) with Dominos Pizza, I suspect it would have an impact on their business. He reaches and might influence the pizza eating public. But if he were to tweet about his frustrations with the wait for service at the Bentley dealership, there probably wouldn't be a ripple. Some rich guy with a hundred followers may tweet the same thing about his Bentley and get a call from the CEO of Bentley America. So size matters not. That's what she said.
Posted on September 26, 2009 at 11:08 pm.
Dan – great points. But size does matter (insert joke here). For example – I currently have a bit over 2500 followers on twitter. Using bit.ly I have been shortening links but finally created an account so I can see the stats. I posted a link to an article called "After Building a Personal Brand, Landing a Marketing Job" in the WSJ. 15 click throughs in the last few hours. An abysmal conversion rate, but lets extrapolate.
Take my 2500 followers, 15 click throughs is 0.6% for about half of one percent. One in 200. For Ashton this calculates as 3,686,570 * 0.6% = 22119.
Ashton should be treated differently because he IS different. He has more reach than the rest of us. He should charge companies to post a link to his twitter feed! Many business people would pay it, even if it is doubtful there are many brands that are aligned with Kutcher's brand.
But that wasn't so much my point or question. It is, if someone is differentiated on a social media site, should they receive selective benefits that other people do not receive? Think LinkedIn's ask-an-expert where you have to have others recommend you to be listed as an expert. That type of thing. I think the answer is yes. But how far should it go?
Posted on September 26, 2009 at 11:50 pm.