9 Types of Social Objects and How To Use Them for PR

Social objects are power­ful PR tools.

As a PR pro­fes­sion­al since 2005, I’ve helped organ­isa­tions of all sizes get their audi­ence to talk about their brands, spokespeople, ser­vices, and products.

This post will give you an in-depth over­view of social objects and learn how to clas­si­fy them. Along with examples of social objects for each clas­si­fic­a­tion, you will also get a recipe for run­ning a power­ful word-of-mouth workshop.

Let’s go:

What is a Social Object?

A social object is what people talk about with each oth­er. A social object could be a thing, a per­son; an event; or a concept. It could be the latest Star Wars movie or what you had for din­ner last night. It could be any­thing, but that spe­cif­ic any­thing — that’s the social object.

During the dec­ade of the hip­pie web, dis­cuss­ing social objects were all the rage. Discussing social objects as social objects must’ve been the pin­nacle of “meta” when the favour­ite top­ic to dis­cuss in social media seemed to be… social media.

In 2005, the Finnish entre­pren­eur Juri Engström dis­cussed social objects to argue that Silicon Valley formed social net­works around social objects — and not vice versa. 

Engström was the founder of the social net­work Jaiku, a much-loved meet­ing place for social media early adop­ters, and this qual­i­fied him as a thought lead­er at the time. ¹Jaiku was a social net­work­ing, micro-blog­ging and lifestream­ing ser­vice com­par­able to Twitter. Jaiku was foun­ded in February 2006 by Jyri Engeström and Petteri Kopon. The ser­vice was made avail­able … Continue read­ing

There was gen­er­ally a massive interest in social media net­works as a phe­nomen­on. Social object the­ory served as a valu­able frame­work to explain why some net­works seemed to thrive, and oth­ers didn’t.

Social net­works have evolved dra­mat­ic­ally, and we know more about dopam­ine-indu­cing gami­fic­a­tion, the math­em­at­ics of vir­al loops, and the inner work­ings of social algorithms that make net­works tick.

The Actor-Network Theory: Social Facts as Things

Thinking of con­cepts as objects is deeply rooted in soci­ology in gen­er­al and phe­nomen­o­logy in particular. 

“The first and most basic rule is to con­sider social facts as things.”
— Emelie Durkheim, soci­olo­gist ²Durkeim, Emile (1982). The Rules of the Sociological Method. New York: The Free Press. p. 60.

Approaching con­cepts as objects is dom­in­ant in the Actor-Network Theory (ANT), which is focused not on why a net­work takes a spe­cif­ic shape but instead on a meth­od or pro­cess for under­stand­ing the rela­tion­ships with­in a network. 

ANT is a the­or­et­ic­al frame­work developed by John Law and Michel Callon in the 1980s to extend stud­ies by schol­ars such as Bruno Latour. The the­ory explores the net­work of rela­tion­ships between groups and organ­isa­tions, emphas­ising con­nec­tions that are not hier­arch­ic­al or lin­ear. The concept is now widely accep­ted as part of the ana­lys­is in many fields, such as engin­eer­ing, soci­ology, eco­nom­ics, and polit­ic­al science.

In ANT ana­lys­is, objects become objects of mean­ing when trans­mit­ted through­out the net­work. They gain or lose mean­ing as they pass through the net­work and change the net­work as they do. For instance, the concept of “fake news” sud­denly becomes more than just two con­joined words; it becomes a social object with addi­tion­al meaning.

This type of PR ana­lys­is holds great prom­ise. In ANT, only inform­a­tion passed through a net­work mat­ters. If PR pro­fes­sion­als can decode what con­sti­tutes a social object, then maybe we can con­struct social objects more methodically.

Hugh McLeod: Principles of Social Objects

Hugh McLeod: Principles of Social Objects

In 2007, car­toon­ist Hugh MacLeod (gapingvoidart.com) star­ted dis­cuss­ing social objects more prac­tic­ally. It made sense since MacLeod’s car­toons were funny and acted as a free-to-share social com­ment­ary of the times; his car­toons were dis­tinct social objects in themselves.

But what are social objects?

Social object = what people talk about with each oth­er. A social object could be a thing, a per­son, an event, a concept etc.

MacLeod went on to out­line nine prin­ciples of social objects. In his words: ³The list sum­mar­ises points MacLeod made at a sem­in­ar in 2013.

• Make mean­ing. The mar­ket for people want­ing some­thing to believe in is infin­ite; make your products “worth it.”
• Create/find a pur­pose. People often con­fuse pur­pose with mean­ing, but the pur­pose relates to why you get up in the morn­ing and do what you do.
• Create play. Humans innately like to play; it’s how we start nego­ti­at­ing the world, so give people a reas­on to want to inter­act with your product.
• Create a new lan­guage. To evolve your product, you must evolve mar­ket­ing. You have to talk to people in a way they have nev­er been talked to before.
• Create share-abil­ity. Don’t make it easy for people to share your product; Make it easy for them to share themselves.
• Push bound­ar­ies of design. Design mat­ters! It has the abil­ity to dif­fer­en­ti­ate your product.
• Facilitate com­munity. Turn your product into a place where people gath­er rather than thing people that people buy.
• Create new con­text. Allow people to see your brand in a new light.
• Enable “Meatspace.” Bring people togeth­er to facil­it­ate dis­cus­sions around your product.

Learn more: 9 Types of Social Objects and How To Use Them for PR

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Jonah Berger: Word of Mouth Concepts

Jonah Berger: Word of Mouth Concepts

Jonah Berger, a mar­ket­ing pro­fess­or at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, pro­posed six key con­cepts in his book “Contagious: How to Build Word of Mouth in the Digital Age” (also known as “Contagious: Why Things Catch On”) that make ideas or products go vir­al or “stick.” ⁴Berger, J. (2014). Contagious: How to build word of mouth in the digit­al age. Simon & Schuster.

These con­cepts are:

• Social cur­rency. People share things that make them look good or help them com­pare favour­ably to oth­ers. It has social cur­rency if a product or idea can make someone appear bright­er, more relaxed, or more in the know.
• Triggers. Ideas that are top of mind spread. Things that are eas­ily mem­or­able and reg­u­larly triggered in every­day envir­on­ments are more likely to be discussed.
• Emotion. When we care, we share. Messages that evoke strong emo­tions (pos­it­ive or neg­at­ive) are more likely to be shared.
• Public. If some­thing is built to show, it grows. The more pub­lic some­thing is, the more likely people will imit­ate it.
• Practical value. People share inform­a­tion to help oth­ers. Useful inform­a­tion gets shared because the sharer wants to assist others.
• Stories. People do not just share inform­a­tion, they tell stor­ies. And stor­ies are the ves­sel that inform­a­tion travels. If people are engaged in the nar­rat­ive, they’re more likely to share.

These con­cepts can be used to craft mes­sages and cam­paigns more likely to be shared and spread, lead­ing to more effect­ive com­mu­nic­a­tion and mar­ket­ing efforts.

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Robert Cialdini: Six Principles of Influence

Robert Cialdini: Six Principles of Influence

Robert Cialdini pub­lished Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion in 1984 and his prin­ciples of influ­ence are widely cited. They provide a frame­work for under­stand­ing how people are per­suaded, and pub­lic rela­tions, advert­ising, and sales pro­fes­sion­als often use them. ⁵Cialdini, R. B. (2009). Influence: The psy­cho­logy of per­sua­sion (Rev. ed.). HarperCollins.

Here are Cialdini’s six principles:

• Reciprocity. This prin­ciple is based on the idea that people feel oblig­ated to give back when they receive it. If a com­pany gives some­thing to its cus­tom­ers (like a free sample or a dis­count), those cus­tom­ers may feel com­pelled to pur­chase in return.
• Scarcity. People tend to want things that are lim­ited or hard to get. Marketers often use this prin­ciple by cre­at­ing a sense of urgency around a product or ser­vice, such as a lim­ited-time offer or a lim­ited-edi­tion product.
• Authority. People tend to fol­low the lead of cred­ible experts. In PR and mar­ket­ing, this can be achieved by hav­ing an expert endorse a product or demon­strate expert­ise and cred­ib­il­ity in the field.
• Consistency (or Commitment). People like to be con­sist­ent with the things they have pre­vi­ously said or done. This prin­ciple is often used in mar­ket­ing by get­ting a small ini­tial com­mit­ment from a cus­tom­er, which increases the like­li­hood that they will make a more sig­ni­fic­ant com­mit­ment later.
• Liking. People are more likely to be per­suaded by people they like. Physical attract­ive­ness, sim­il­ar­ity, com­pli­ments, and coöper­a­tion can influ­ence this.
• Consensus (or Social Proof). People often look to the actions and beha­viours of oth­ers to determ­ine their own. If a product or ser­vice is pop­u­lar or endorsed by oth­ers, people are like­li­er to deem it good or trustworthy.

These prin­ciples are power­ful tools for per­sua­sion and can be used indi­vidu­ally or in com­bin­a­tion to influ­ence per­cep­tions and behaviours.

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Different Types of Social Objects

Types of Social Objects (Word of Mouth)

To map word-of-mouth for dif­fer­ent PR activ­it­ies, I’m pro­pos­ing a spe­cif­ic clas­si­fic­a­tion of social object types. 

Social object = what people talk about with each oth­er. A social object could be a thing, a per­son, an event, a concept etc.

And since Elon Musk has become such an expert at mak­ing people talk about him and his vari­ous entre­pren­eur­i­al endeav­ours, I’m using him to explain each type.

Types of social objects:

1. Curiosity Objects. Is your PR object a curi­os­ity worthy of get­ting people to talk about it with each other?

“Have you heard about Elon Musk send­ing a Tesla Roadster into space?”

2. Fear Objects. Is your PR object reflect­ing a fear or anxi­ety not­able enough to get people talk­ing about it with each other?

“Have you heard how Elon Musk isn’t expect­ing every­one on the first Mars exped­i­tion to survive?”

3. Gap Objects. Is your PR object filling some form of a gap that will make it easi­er for people to talk about the object with each other? 

“Have you heard about Elon Musk launch­ing Neuralink to con­nect human brains with technology?”

4. Mystery Objects. Is your PR object stim­u­lat­ing con­ver­sa­tion between people due to its intriguing nature?

“Have you heard about Elon Musk sleep­ing on the floor in one of his Tesla factories?”

5. Inspirational Objects. Is your PR object enough of a gen­er­al interest mile­stone or inspir­a­tion to get people talk­ing to each oth­er about it? 

“Have you heard about Elon Musk build­ing a whole city, Solar City, based on renew­able energy?”

6. Envy Objects. Is your PR object reflect­ing some­thing that will make people talk to each oth­er about ambi­tions and aspirations?

“Have you heard about Elon Musk being nearly broke but still man­aging to build incred­ible companies?”

7. Conflict Objects. Is your PR object part of a rel­ev­ant con­flict that engages people enough to dis­cuss it with each other?

“Have you heard about Elon Musk tak­ing on the whole car industry with his elec­tric Teslas?”

8. Ego Objects. Is your PR object usable as a token of self-iden­ti­fic­a­tion when talk­ing to others?

“Have you heard about Elon Musk prac­tising First Principle thinking?”

9. Anger Objects. Is your PR object pro­voc­at­ive enough to evoke an emo­tion­al response worthy of dis­cuss­ing with oth­er people?

“Have you heard about Elon Musk smoking weed on the Joe Rogan podcast?”

Learn more: 9 Types of Social Objects and How To Use Them for PR

💡 Subscribe and get a free ebook on how to get bet­ter PR ideas!

The Social Objects Workshop