Peer-Associative Branding or, "What if We Said Your Friends Are All Doing It"

I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine; he's in charge of development at a state-wide AIDS awareness/action organization. He recently directed a fundraising campaign for the organization on Facebook and I asked him how it went. It went well, he explained, but the fundraising application takes 5% of every donation and he thought he'd have been better off receiving checks from some of the donors since he lost "so much" in processing.

True - the organization gave up 5% in processing fees, but what did it gain in peer-associative branding, I asked. That is, I'm a Facebook user and I see on my newsfeed that five of my friends gave to said organization. I've never heard of it before, or I'm not too familiar with it, but I see that three of my friends, peers I have positive associations with, gave to the organization as well. My friends, via their donations, have, in addition to giving money, attached a sliver of their personal brand to the organization. It is that, not anything that the organization (or initiative) projects on its own surface, that I am attracted to when I first learn of it.

Or, I am attracted to the organization because I want to have a connection and/or sex with and/or impress the three aforementioned donors. When I read more about the organization, my reception is tainted by the positive residue of my desire for said influencers, thus I give it more attention than I would in other circumstances.  

This is, of course, the essence of social branding. 

And fortunately for organizations, this association is more often a positive or neutral one than it is negative. Very typically one of these scenarios occur: 

1. A cluster of friends that I desire for whatever cocktail of reasons have become supporters - financial or passive (joining a group or becoming a fan) - of an organization, thus I receive the organization with an open mind and am more likely to look into it in a more meaningful way, be receptive to donating to or volunteering with the organization, or a combination of both. 
2. A cluster of friends I don't necessarily enjoy more than I do anyone else (but do enjoy enough to be Facebook friends with) become "fans." While this doesn't evoke the same positive peer-associative response, at least I see the organization's name, establishing for the entity a predisposition of familiarity in my brain, which will be handy the next time I encounter it in a more-meaningful way.

So, more often than not, public peer-associative branding by way of Facebook transactions are either positive or benign pieces of exposure. But it's exposure, people!

Since Facebook mostly clusters people by like-interest or experience, it's a very rare occasion that I am turned off of an item over which one can become a digital supporter because of who I see associating with it. In a very rare scenario, Helen supports something and I start to ask questions. We all know a Helen - I met mine at day camp in the 10th grade, she friended me on Facebook, (likely by way of that pesky damn "FriendFinder") and in all of our forced Facebook chats she casually drops I am going to hell because I moved in with my girlfriend before we got married (or conversely, she over-zealously evokes Marx every time politics come up). Perhaps Helen adopts some cause on Facebook and then I, for some time, associate that cause as one characterized by Helen's zealotry. But, if this is unintended on the part of the organization (we should assume that some causes passionately adopted by Helen don't necessarily want/need me as a supporter), even Helen-danger is a) pretty unlikely and b) far less potent and permanent. Drawing a passive association between a lesser-liked Facebook friend leaves far less permanent an imprint than the one left by the opening my mind to positively receiving a product or organization. When I was little, my desire to want something that the cool kids had far outmatched the intensity with which I did not want something less cool kids had.

Need proof? 

I volunteer for an organization called Maine Youth Leadership and they held a Facebook fundraiser similar to the one held for the AIDS initiative. I gave my money and when prompted, I typed why I support the organization, and this went straight to my news feed. Immediately afterward, a friend, someone who works in a fundraising capacity for a national health organization, reached out and asked if he could some how get involved by volunteering and - if we needed it - in a fundraising capacity. Either he a) learned about an organization he would have liked already visa vis my involvement or b) learned more about the organization because he was open to doing so by way of my association with it or c) a combination of the two. Either way, the 5% processing charge was certainly worth its weight in this scenario. 

In part, many are initially receptive to involvement with X organization for the same reason I wanted a Trapperkeeper in elementary school:we want the cool kids to like me. This isn't to say that this is the fundamental reason for our prolonged involvement; it is to give credence to, and leverage, the birthplace of desire for association and involvement. 

And remember how the fundraiser suggests he would have been better off receiving some checks in favor of paying processing fees? Imagine this in the context of the Trapperkeeper. If all of the cool kids kept their cool toys to themselves, no one else would have wanted a stake in them.

In the digital age, the monopolization of cool no longer belongs exclusively to the monied, as the small organization is offered the same knowledge and mechanisms necessary for victory in the on-going battle for public perception that large ones are. While the latter still monopolizes on person-power for larger-scale implementation, they do not necessarily have an edge on leveraging said-power smartly.  2007 and 2008 were, after all, epic years for mismanagement of corporate forays into social media, which makes some sense in the context of my personal experience in which I observed that where lean, agile organizations were less equipped in machinery and manpower, they often made remained competitive by mastering approach, innovation, and industry literacy. 

In situations like these, Beth's aforementioned sentiment - that her head is consistently spinning as she interprets and reinterprets all of this change - rings so true. 

Last night I was watching flipping between Law and Order and Terminator 3 (don't judge me) and I thought:

"Wow. I wish that I could go back in time and tell the 11-year-old me - the one sitting in Mrs. Wentworth's 5th grade classroom at Cornish Elementary, reading an issue of The Weekly Reader that purports that 'The Information Super Highway' is going to change everything - and tell little me, 'This is bigger than I remember you thinking it is. It's not just about making 'Oregon Trail' a cooler game. What they mean to say is that in the future, thanks to the brilliance of various scientists and digital pioneers and a series of tubes, your reputation - the intangible essence of how you are perceived by people - will actually be worth something and leveragable. And while it will be used by countless corporations to sell you crap that's bad for you and that you don't really need, it can also be used to give credibility to organizations, people, activists and public servants that are very well-intentioned. And if you know that, if you are really aware of that, you, the individual, will hold a lot of power.'" 

My head's a' spinnin'.

___

Note: I should be clear that I am not necessarily in favor or against a percentage of donations going to donation-processing. I would, as a fundraiser, prefer to opt for the free option. In this case, I am merely suggesting examining that's coming out of process, and suggesting a conversation be held with regard to what, then, the fee, if any, should be.