The Socialness of Falafel

BigTreetop.com is only one tool for the business which wants to connect socially with its customers. Many businesses have mastered the art without our help.

I happened across an article today on Boston.com about the best 3 Falafel places in Boston. I was half surprised to see Falafel King listed. The surprised half of me rembered that Falafel King is a tiny, dark place in a small food court in Downtown Crossing. Their menu is basic in its scope, and there is no place to sit. The other half of me, on the other hand, remembered their fantastic fresh tahini sauce, clean, efficient kitchen, home-made falafel, and the amazingly social nature of the experience (even at a food court!), as served up by the gregarious owner and his staff, who greeted every single customer in the usually long line with a smile, a friendly “hello” and a free falafel, dipped in hummus and handed over to counter while they waited.

In those brief moments – 30 seconds here, 30 seconds there – over the course of the 6 months or so that i worked nearby and visited Falafel King, i got to know the owner (a fun, intense, hard-working guy who had come from Iraq to the U.S. in the early 1990’s), and the food (made with fresh ingredients every morning by the owner himself), and even developed a bit of a friendship strong enough that we chatted every now and again aside from his work, and that i am writing about it now years later. All because the owner (i can’t seem to remember his name now, unfortunately) understood that his business – falafels – is about connections with people as much as it is a good product.

fyi: check out the reviews of Falafel King if you want to see the effectiveness of their “social marketing”

Find and Promote Social Objects to Improve Your Business

“Social Objects” are everywhere, and may be the key to the success of many products and businesses. The theory of “Social Objects”, though based in a lot of great Anthropological study from the 1900’s, and recently laid out nicely by Jyri Engestrom with respect to social media, is perhaps even more relevant today, and can be attributed to the runaway successes of businesses like YouTube.com, Flickr.com, Fantasy Sports, Apple, Starbucks and lots of others.

Since the main audience for this blog is a bit more results-oriented than semi-geeky academics like myself, i’ll quickly share the common-sense approach to the theory. Here it is, based on 2 premises:

Premise 1: Humans have a hard time relating directly to one another. Instead, we tend to relate through or around social objects. Most events where 2 or more people are involved occur around a meal, a movie, a sport, a candidate or a location. It is extremely rare that two people will just sit and talk about each other.

Premise 2: Humans like to share social objects for free. A story about a great (or a lousy) movie, meal, celebrity, product, device or service serves as the “social object” that helps people to relate to one another. It therefore does not usually require (though sometimes that can be useful) a discount, payment or other monetary benefit in order to be shared.

Here are 4 simple tips (based on Jyri Engestrom’s excellent presentation) on how to turn social objects loose in a business through online and offline channels (which should both be utilized if at all possible).

1. Be on the lookout for social objects. What are employees or customers talking with each other about in your business? Are people blogging (google your business to find out), commenting (check your suggestion board), twittering (use www.summize.com to search for your business on twitter) about your hamburgers? Your employees? Your excellent customer service? The photos on your website? A recent concert at your venue? These are all social objects, and they’re everywhere if you look hard enough.
2. Promote community around social objects. Once you’ve identified a few objects, promote community around them. Are people talking to each other about your yoga class? Find a way to allow them to continue those relationships outside of the class through a saturday yoga mini-conference, or a think-up on BigTreetop.com to get ideas for how to make the class better, or encourage them to post their photos or experiences or thoughts on your blog or through Twitter.
3. Allow people to share the object. People tend to want to share social objects. Is your fantastic hamburger a social object? Provide them with a way to tell their friends by posting an experience and a photo online, or by giving a printed card to friends inviting them to try it.
4. Turn invitations into gifts. To make the act of sharing even more fun for the sharer, give them a way to share their social object as a gift. Instead of providing a customer with a discount for telling her friends about your fantastic new coffee blend, find a way that that invite means a discount or a benefit for the friend instead.

* AP Photo above from Mike Ditka’s Restaurant in Chicago