Should Brands Care If a Social Influencer is Anonymous?

Pseudonyms and user anonymity have been a hot topic in social circles for some time now. This week, they came into sharp focus with Google’s announcement that they are retracting their earlier policy restricting the use of pseudonyms. Sort of. In this post, I’ll try to put this in context for social marketers.

Defining Terms

Pseudonyms and user anonymity are not the same thing. Pseudonyms are just fictitious names that can be used in conjunction with valid identities or to preserve anonymity, like how Lady Gaga is also Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta. An example of the latter is Deep Throat, who was anonymous before being revealed as Mark Felt.

Google+

Previously, Google had announced that they would shut down pseudonyms. But as of today, they will permit some users who use pseudonyms across the web on Google+. Note that they are not accepting new users, just those who have established pseudonyms already in place. So it appears that this is just a step in the direction of the policy at social networks like Twitter. Apparently even folks with existing pseudonyms will have to initially identify themselves before Google discards their personal information after account verification. Let’s hope nobody is looking when Batman signs up.

While that’s somewhat complicated, it only affects a small group of users at the moment. The benefit for them is that their Google+ pseudonyms will come up correctly in Google search. Also, for users who use pseudonyms that are connected to their real identity, Google is adding a few new profile configuration fields such as “nickname” so that the user can come up in searches for their pseudonym or real name. Finally, Google says that they are not done from a policy perspective and will make pseudonyms more broadly available. We’ll see if the Electronic Frontier Foundation steps back in to offer another opinion.

The Upshot For Social Marketers

With that background, what might this change mean for marketers? It’s clear that there is a range of identity usage across the social web already so it’s not a question of whether or not users will adopt pseudonyms. What’s important for marketers to understand is where they adopt them and why.

The where and why have a lot to do with the unique culture of the networks and how people use them. For example, part of what has made Twitter so important during political uprisings is the fact that it’s a means of disseminating information without compromising identity. On the other hand, part of what has made Facebook and LinkedIn so successful and trusted as substrates for many of our closest relationships is the fact that we have a high-degree of confidence that the people we are connecting with are who they say they are.

Brand marketers are primarily interested in identity as a means of facilitating user experience via data collection. This builds on the fact that marketers generally believe that the more they know about a customer the better they can serve him/her. It also speaks to a fundamental value exchange between marketers and consumers that says that the former will return value in exchange for user data. That value usually takes the form of relevant content and offers. But it’s tricky for marketers because, for this to work well, the data they collect across touch-points needs to be aggregated with a single profile. In order to do that, marketers rely on a unique identifier of the user’s identity (most often a verified email address or a browser cookie ID).

Following this, when a user creates a pseudonym (that preserves anonymity) the above value exchange is partially compromised in so far as marketers may not be able to aggregate data effectively. But at the end of the day, brands are much more interested in the user’s behavior than they are in their identity. And, anonymous users may still provide brands with a significant volume of behavioral data from a single touch-point. So while anonymity compromises the marketer’s ability to deliver relevant data it does not eliminate it.

How Should Brands Treat Anonymous Users?

In general, brands don’t need to do anything differently, though they should respect the user’s right to anonymity. For example, if they ask for support through Twitter, it makes sense to respond to them just as you would to any other user. If, however, they want to participate in a contest, your terms and conditions should clearly articulate your position with regard to identity. Many contests require multiple ways of contacting a user if they win a prize, or stipulate that the user will forfeit their prize if they do not respond through a specified channel. Here are four tips for engaging with anonymous users:

Recognize that they may be using a pseudonym to protect themselves
Don’t demand that they reveal their identity prior to providing a service, unless absolutely necessary
Look for patterns in their behavior that might provide clues to what they might find valuable
Provide easy access to users who want a “private” communication channel

Changes On Facebook

At the end of last year, Facebook announced that it would be testing a feature that would allow brands to communicate privately with specific users . This bears mentioning because some users embrace pseudonyms to avoid public exposure around sensitive issues such as health-related topics. It’s interesting to see that Facebook is addressing this issue in a very different way than Twitter or Google. Namely, they are giving brands and users a way to communicate privately and off the public wall where friends might be exposed to posted content or personally identifiable information. Once again, this highlights the unique culture of each social network and how differently each deals with pseudonyms and user anonymity differently.

What are your thoughts? How does this impact your brand?

Posted on January 25th, 2012 by Roland Smart, Vice President, Marketing in Facebook, Featured, Google+, Marketing, Social Media, Twitter

Roland Smart, Vice President, Marketing

Roland Smart leads product strategy for Involver and is responsible for innovating in three key product areas, including the Conversation Suite, Social Markup Language, Visual SML, and the Application Suite. Smart has a broad range of experience with social technology and advertising, having led the marketing team at Sprout/AdVine, a leading social/mobile ad creation platform. In addition, he led the marketing team at Adaptive Path, where he pursued his passion for bringing great user experience to enterprise-level technology platforms. Prior to that he was on the start up team at Adina For Life, a successful San Francisco-based beverage company. He also writes a blog at www.rolandsmart.com about social marketing practices for small and medium sized brands

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