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‘ENGAGEMENT’: THE CONSEQUENCE OF SOCIAL PHYSICS
Engagement, the new frontier
We live in the era of communicative abundance, we just need to wrap our heads around this new concept.
The marvelous 80s, the years when everything was possible, when communication was strictly regimented,
the years when few had a microphone but many were obediently listening, those were the years that
made history. Internet, and more specifically Social Media, have created a new channel that responds
directly to the community, a community that decides to whom heed.
Communication today is purely competition, and competition leads to the production of new, creative and
improved contents.
It is clear that the paradigm “I talk, you listen” can’t work anymore, especially nowadays when the
environment has so much to offer. However, almost every company has its own social page, but they talk
about themselves and they create a brand-centered soliloquy, which ends up being less interesting than
the most hated telesales.
On the internet, many talk, but few can speak
up. The companies on Facebook, are referring to
the audience as a fanbase, they are following the
television model: underestimating or maybe
ignoring, the difference between “listeners” and
“potential listeners”.
A fan is someone who is receiving only those
messages towards which he has stated an
interest; the interest in those messages is the
“engagement” or involvement, this is the unit of
measurement that allows us to calculate the
effectiveness of the social page as an editorial
instrument.
The brand’s editorial plan should be wholly
addressed in the achievement of “engagement”,
if not the social media itself will prevent the
diffusion of the messages; it’s algorithm shows
the public what it believes will be interesting for
them, what the public prove to enjoy, nothing
else.
The brand is aware of the low effectiveness of its
message, so they react by using a television
commercial approach: they promote the post, in
this way they are forcing the distribution of the
content.
Basically: if you don’t like my message, you
should see it. This resembles the quite annoying
phenomenon of the SPAM. Overall the TV commercial is less annoying, at least it’s in the middle of a
movie.
The effectiveness of a brand’s marketing action on Social Media is measured with a public data: the PTAT,
“People Talking About This”. PTAT is the sum of all interactions, in a certain period of time, between the
community. If we were to compare it to the TV, we could say that it’s similar to the share, the portion of
the public that actually watches a certain TV show. What happens when a certain TV show cannot reach a
Standard economic incentives miss the mark
because they frame people as individual, rational actors
rather than as social creatures influenced by social ties.
The process of social learning implies that if there is a lot of
interaction between someone showing the behavior and a new person
then it is likely that this new idea will take root and change the new
person’s behavior.
ENGAGEMENT

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satisfying share? They declare it a failure and stop the production. If the public of a social page was just
its fanbase, we would be expecting the whole fanbase talk about the page, because it’s formed by those
who have chosen to receive messages from the brand.
However PTAT is inevitably an extremely small percentage of the fanbase itself. So, why does the
potential public of a brand, ignore the brand? The answer is easy: the message is not interesting, it’s a
fail.
We have been saying it for years now: social media are not TV, nor radio or print. Social media are a new
mean of communication, unique, with particular features that cannot be used in the same way as other
communication media. It’s necessary to use a precise grammar, suitable for the social media community,
we need a language that puts the public in the center, we need to entertain people, to amuse them, to
touch them, we should aim to activate a conversation that will instigate the word of mouth: the engine
that will spread the contents on Social Media, what us from Codcast call “Socialcast”.
Involving people is a sociology theme, we have started from here to adjust our language, from modern
study that correlate communication with people’s behavior, studies that gave birth to the social physics.
Social Physics
Social Networks paved the way for the era of "big data analysis". Social media has given access to a huge
quantity of personal data and information regarding our behavior and by classifying, measuring and
comparing this data, a new science called social physics was born. Physics studies matter, energy and the
interaction between them; social physics studies the relationship between communication and the state of
people.
A pan of cold water is on the stove. If we switch the heat on, the water will boil and eventually
evaporate. Let’s imagine a square in a town, on a sunny Spring day. A crowd of people are strolling.
Suddenly somebody screams “It’s a bomb”. In a matter of seconds everybody will have fled from the
square.
Our behavior follows patterns that have been studied by psychologists for years, but it’s only thanks to
social networks that the theory can be transformed into a concrete strategy. Social Networks are a means
of communicating and can measure the effectiveness of communication. By slowly implementing measures
defined by social physics, we can gradually correct the strategy if it’s not as effective as we expected.
Modern commercial communication has to take into account the social nature of human beings. How many
times have we asked a friend advice regarding a service or product? " Do you know any good hotels in...?",
"Is your dentist any good?",” Which smart phone would you buy?", How often have we bought a trendy
product? How many owners of an Iphone did in-depth technical research on the other phones before
buying their Iphone? The social relationships we have are the reason why we behave as we do and our
behavior is not always rational.
Today there is a more modern and efficient approach towards communication and it’s based on applying
social physics. It takes into account the fact that human beings are irrational, that they don't want things
to be too complicated, it satisfies their innate laziness and ignorance: "Why did I buy this?" " Because that's
what everybody else is buying"
Codcast is Netroots
Netroots is a term coined in 2002 by Jerom Armstrong, a political strategist, founder of Vox Media and
political strategist for Howard Dean in the 2004 USA presidential elections. Netroots is organized through
blogs and online media, particularly through social networks. The term 'Netroots' is a combination of the
words 'Internet' and 'Grassroots', the local political movements which play an important role in keeping
people informed about the political activity that is going on.
The Netroots are groups which support movements through digital media by raising awareness and
increasing consensus. They were born in the USA to support and finance political campaigns, but today

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they are being increasingly used by companies to generate consensus and confidence in consumers,
turning them into happy clients before even having tried the product.
David Karpf, professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University and author of 'The
MoveOn Effect: The Unexpected Transformation of American Political Advocacy', defines netroots
organizations as original advocacy groups that can support any kind of initiative: an example is
MoveOn.org which raised 88 million dollars to finance Obama's campaign.
Netroots can easily be used for companies who want to be visible on internet because it puts people into
contact with each other, it spreads ideas, raises consensus and trust. People's trust gets politicians
elected, in a free market it increases sales.
The first characteristic of Netroots is that they are not tied to any organization and doesn't receive
guidelines or rules from anyone. It’s a typical product of the web and is corresponds to what people like
about the web: no contamination, original ideas, simple language. Grassroots associations work by
canvassing meetings neighbourhoods, netroots follow this democratic and simple form of communication.
Many companies are present on internet, and are a bit like the school kid who gets left out, who nobody
invites to a party , who's a loner.
Facebook has over 1 billion users and can be an opportunity to do local and international business but it
follows rules that are quite different from the traditional media ones. If you don't understand them you
will inevitably be left out.
What we do
Codcast Italia is an organization devoted to strategic network consultation for companies. It works by
defining the structure, the scope and actions to be taken in order to activate business models sustainable
and profitable for the network usage.
Codcast Italia identifies web marketing and communication strategies through the study of the targeted
audience, through social media, through the message to spread out and media to be used, using the know-
how developed in the Social Physics field.
Codcast Italia has a multiplatform channel followed by over 55 million people from 14 countries over the
world.
Area of expertise:
 Internet Strategy;
 E-commerce;
IMAGE+TEXT COMBINATION
(DISPLAY ADVERTISING)
EMAIL MARKETING
(DISPLAY ADVERTISING)
CONVERSION
DISCOVER
SOCIAL ACTIONS
(DISPLAY ADVERTISING)
FACEBOOK ADS
(DISPLAY ADVERTISING)
IAB STD FORMATS
(DISPLAY ADVERTISING)
WALLPAPER-CPC
(DISPLAY ADVERTISING)
YOUTUBE
(SEA)
VIRAL VIDEO
(DISPLAY ADVERTISING)
IMAGE+TEXT COMBINATION
(DISPLAY ADVERTISING)
LOYALTY
CASHBACK
(AFFILIATE MKT)
DYNAMIC RETARGETING
(DISPLAY ADVERTISING)
RETARGETING
(DISPLAY ADVERTISING)
VOUCHER
(AFFILIATE MKT)
ACTION
LOCAL SEARCH
(SEO)
BRAND SEARCH
(SEA-SEO)
DESIRE
UNDERSTANDING GOOGLE DISPLAY ADV NETWORK
(SEA)
REAL TIME BIDDING
(DISPLAY ADVERTISING)
PRODUCT LISTING ADS - GOOGLE
(SEA)
POP-UNDER
(DISPLAY ADVERTISING)
INFO VIDEO
(DISPLAY ADVERTISING)
PRODUCT FEED
(SEA)
GENERIC SEARCH
(SEA -SEO)
PRICE COMPARE WEBSITES
(AFFILIATE MKT)
TRAFFIC BROKER
(AFFILIATE MKT)
SHOP INTEGRATION
(DISPLAY ADVERTISING)

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 Internet Marketing;
 Content Strategy;
 Social Media;
 Social Network;
 Advertising;
 Intranet.
We are attentive to the first step in the transformation of a viewer into a client: the identification.
It’s in this phase that some innovative creativity is required, a creativity that leads to a simple truth:
Internet is a media with its own unique features that requires a different message from the one coming
from other media, first and foremost TV.
Internet works thanks to incentives
Television and the Internet are both
networks. Networks are the combination
of many nodes connected to each other,
the way they’re connected determines
the network features. Television has a
primary node (editor) that transfers the
message, and a secondary node that
receives it (spectators). Internet is made
up by small groups of nodes (people)
connected to each other.
Is utterly important to understand how
the network works in order to use in the
best way possible the networks’
efficiency: it’s prosaic to say that a radio
communication will not work on
television because it has no imagines, however today internet is dominated by a television communication
model that doesn’t take advantage of its potential.
In order to reach the furthest points of the network we must involve the intermedium points, using an
incentive to convince them to work for our needs. The key of communication on the Internet is the
incentive.
The return of the Carosello
A social campaign should be planned by taking into consideration the incentive to be given to the nodes so
that they become the “mouthpiece” of our message, broadcasting the message to the other linked nodes.
Why should our friends talk about us with their friends? This is an important question that we should
answer if we want to broadcast to the internet. The incentive could vary: economical, emotional, help,
educative, cultural, humoristic, utilitarian. Some are more effective than others, but at least one
should be there.
This is why the television communication model based on commercials does not work on the internet: we
rarely appreciate a commercial and even more rarely we share it amongst our friends. We need a creative
effort in order to generate a sort of communication that satisfies the public and in the meantime the
advertiser. A feasible effort; in the 70s “Carosello” was offering a formula that was respecting the
audience: the communication lasted 90 seconds and in the first 60 they could not include any references
to brands.
During the “Carosello” the advertiser was forced to produce entertainment, whether it was a brief scene
or a cartoon, the most important thing was to create interest and generate curiosity amongst the
audience.
TELEVISION
(BROADCAST)
SOCIAL NETWORK
(SOCIALCAST)

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One word is enough
A recent statistic has calculated that, in one day, a citizen living in an advanced country is overflown by
1.500 advertisements. The surplus of ads, often misleading ads, has generated a general state of mistrust
amongst people. The diffidence built against the advertisement has inevitably reduced the power of ads.
As a counterstrike the advertisement system has reacted by stepping up the game and creating new
spaces to control, feeding this negative spiral.
There is only one ancient method that has survived: word of mouth between acquaintances. The trust
embedded in a message coming from a friend is so strong that even though the friend is not competent,
the message doesn’t become less important. We should take as an example the choice of a specialized
doctor, we rarely research a qualified dentist online but instead we entrust our friend (that usually is not
a dentist) with their advices, a friend that is not able to rationally judge the skills and competence of the
dentist he is suggesting. If the advice comes from a friend, usually it’s enough.
Internet and Social Networks are a word of mouth amplifier. Considering the essence of the network, as
we previously saw, the message is spread node by node, and by doing that the trust increases. When the
message reaches the addressee they do not question the honesty and trustworthiness of the sender.
Trust specialists
Trust is a value that is fading away from commercial communication. The traditional interaction between
the ads and the target has developed following just one rule: increasing the overflow of ads. This is why
the relationship between the ads and the target is now static, oppressive, desperately trying to reach for
that one percent of conversions that can transform a campaign into a “winning” one. Today alone we will
receive over 1.500 ads: how many will you remember?
In order to protect itself, our brain has generated a self-defense mechanism that identifies as “junk
email” the unwanted ads and develops a natural mistrust towards who is sending it. Every agency
considers a success a campaign that converts that one percent of the target in clients, ignoring the
remaining 99%, a percentage that is made up of bored people and maybe is hostile to the brand that has
interrupted the movie.
Let’s face it, advertisement is spam.