Remember I talked about the definition of engagement marketing this week, and that I found a nice description on Wikipedia?
Well, there was more on Wikipedia about engagement marketing. Wikipedia referred to an interview with Henry Jenkins DeFlorz, who is Professor of Humanities and Founder and Director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT.
In the interview the psychological and sociological aspect of engagement marketing shows. Now it’s time to share a little secret: I know a lot about psychology, sociology, philosophy and anthropology. Together with interactive and social marketing, they’re my main areas of interest.
I have been saying for years that every marketing firm (and even every company) should have a psychologist on board. Anyway, let me skip the personal thoughts and get back to the point: engagement marketing.
And now I quite from Wikipedia: “Engagement Marketing is a very broad term, and purposefully so. At its heart, is the insight that human beings are highly social animals, and have an innate need to communicate and interact. Therefore, any engagement marketing initiative must allow for two-way flows of information and communication. We believe, people embrace what they create. And why is this important? Because in advanced economies the values of society and the individual change. At the heart of this is the key issue around identity and belonging. We have always had community. Pre- industrialization, we were tied to our communities by geography, tradition, the state and birthright. External forces shaped our identity. However, in a post-modern world we can have many selves, as we undertake a quest for self identity. This is described as Psychological Self-Determination the ability to exert control over the most important aspects of one’s life, especially personal identity, which has become the source of meaning and purpose in a life no longer dictated by geography or tradition”.
I should have known Henry Jenkins DeFlorz sooner, but I have to admit I never heard of him before (OK, I live in Europe).
Anyway, this is so insightful and corresponds so much with my beliefs that I wanted to share it.
This, more than anything else, is for me the very reason why engagement marketing is so important. Because it fits with the psychological motivations of mankind: belonging to social groups, creating, self-expression, telling stories, sharing and much, much more.
If you share these beliefs, I invite you again (and now, it’s the last time I ask you in a post, promised) to join me and some others on www.engagementmarketing.com.
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