Should you include a human in your social media post or will it turn your customers off?
Including humans in your social media photos is a great way to engage your audience. However, it can also mean they pay more attention to the people than your product. For that reason, researchers wanted to work out whether there’s a middle ground, where human presence is implied rather than explicit. I call it the “Goldilooks effect”.
Humans are wired to pay attention to what other humans are doing. The Social Hypothesis Theory has taught us that human characteristics (voices, eyes, faces, presence) are processed more quickly and easily than objects and words, and that means they are a short-cut to engaging your audience.
However, including humans in your posts can backfire. For example, researchers have found including a human face decreases people’s ability to imagine themselves in the situation that is being promoted. In tourism posts, seeing the face of someone enjoying a holiday dampened people’s desire to travel to that destination in a way that seeing only the back of that same tourist did not.
It seems a little bit of human presence is good because it stimulates their imagination, but too much and it tips from “this could be me” to “that’s great for you!”.
Wanting to test the hypothesis that too much human presence can dampen customer enthusiasm, another group of researchers created three different versions of an ad for a treadmill.
In one version, the treadmill was pictured on its own without any human presence. In another, a woman was pictured running on the treadmill. In the third, human presence was implied with a workout towel and water bottle sitting on the treadmill.
Three hundred study participants were then presented with a choice between two treadmill brands. The product’s attributes (price, ratings, warranty) were the same, but the images had either high, medium, or no human presence.
Overwhelmingly, participants chose the medium social presence treadmill (towel and bottle) more than either the high-presence (woman running) or no-presence option.
The effects of social presence seem to be strongest when the product is set against a plain background. When tested using an in-situ (consumption) backdrop, like a gym in this case or a restaurant for food products, social presence isn’t relied upon as much to evaluate the product. That means that while the contextual background may enhance consumer engagement with a post, it may also distract them from evaluating and ultimately choosing the product.
In summary, think of the Goldilooks effect as follows:
Never miss a story: sign up to SmartCompany’s free daily newsletter and find our best stories on LinkedIn.
Bri Williams is an authority on behavioural economics applied to everyday business and personal effectiveness.
