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Intpulse: What Defines Social Media

Most national brands would agree that they have a love/hate relationship with social media.  Love it when it’s in their favor, but really hate it when it’s not.  However, most companies have taken the stance of Cold War style appeasement toward social media.  Everyone has a Facebook page, a Twitter user, or even this Squidoo crap (which I still don’t understand).  We put the ubiquitous digg and stumble upon links on all content (however stupid it may be) and give a thumbs up to the boss assuring him we are using these newfangled fads on the interweb.

However, just as appeasement didn’t work in the Cold War (yes, I would be up for a scholarly debate), it doesn’t work on the internet either.  Appeasement is inherently reactive, whereas social media is a combination of intent and impulse or what I like to call “intpulse.”  (Look for this is Webster’s soon.)  An intpulse is defined as an acute action performed with unconscious intention to serve an unconscious need without any perceived threat of loss if the action is or is not performed.  (Further suggestions to the revision of this definition welcome.)  This is different from a natural reaction like taking your hand off of a burning stove, or getting a drink of water when you are thirsty.  In both of those examples, you stand to lose something (your hand or quenched thirst), by not doing them.  With an intpulse not doing it has just as much of a consequence as doing it.  To use another Cold War analogy, one might call it a zero sum game.

It’s impossible to react to spontaneous intpulses, but that is what companies try to do.  Like the unpopular kid in high school tries to mirror the popular jock, it’s an unpredictable game of catch up with no logical pro-action available.  Intpulses are a zero sum action.  They are performed because they have “nothing to lose” by making these actions and they unconsciously satisfy the need of the user however miniscule that need may be.  However, the value of satisfying that need is so miniscule that without the impulsive component, it would never be done.

For example, let’s look at this through a simple example.  I did a quick search for “McDonalds” in Twitter and found two very different, but very common intpulses.  The first one is here:



Why would someone take out their phone or login to twitter to post this urge?  Intpulse.  It is satisfying both their intent to let someone know that they are dreaming of an Egg McMuffin (dammit, I’m hungry now) and look for similar validation or attention, yet this intent is done impulsively.  The user stands to lose nothing by posting this and gain either a) the validation of others b) the attention of others c) none of the above (but as nothing is gained, nothing is lost).

Let’s look at example two.  Though a bit more passionately worded, it represents the same intpulse behavior:



Again, the user satisfies their need to vent (intent), but does so in an impulsive way (social media).  Never has there been an medium of communication that allows for impulsive intent to take place.  The inner thoughts and subconcious are becoming concious, unconciously.  (Say that three times fast.)  It’s oxymoronic in any scenerio other than social media.

The most important component of the intpulse is the fact that the user is perceived to have “nothing to lose,” which is a hard mentality to fight.  We should know, this is the same mentality that defines a terrorist with a bomb strapped to their chest, or a kamakazi pilot.  Clearly we haven’t found a very good way to combat that despite what Dick Chaney or Barack Obama say.  However, there are a handful of extremely good examples of ways that visionary companies have found ways to use Containment strategy (sorry needed one more war analogy) for users to shake out their intpulses.  We will save those for tomorrow...