Author: Alasdair Munn
I loved my University years. I was lucky enough to find myself in a relatively carefree and safe environment in which I could explore the world without being exposed to its horrors. There was always an abundance of people wanting to engage in what we considered intellectual pursuits. We could stretch and exercise our brains. There were equal amounts of people who wanted to explore alternative forms of exercise and entertainment too.
My choice of subjects caused some concern. Not to me, I might add. They suited me to the ground. I did not have to learn as much as absorb. Now, almost 20 years later I am finding that my majors, Industrial Psychology and Industrial Sociology are responsible for forming my approach to how I work.
Social media, for me, has to be seen and applied in the context of people and their relationships. Their relationships to themselves and the people around them. Communities, culture, expected norms, values, desires and hopes.
Jung and his concept of The Collective Unconscious particularly enthralled me. My very crude and somewhat dumbed down interpretation of it is we are all connected through a series of universal truths. These truths are manifested and made real through stories and imagery. The underlying message of the stories remains fairly constant. What changes is how those stories are told or manifested. They alter according to our culture, our norms, values, life lessons and physical environment. In the end, we have a collection of wonderful stories, each carrying the same central message, but individually making that message accessible to different audiences, cultures and belief systems.
I spent some time over the Christmas break trying to analyze my approach to social media strategy and integrated marketing. I found that even within specific niche markets I tend to approach it with a multicultural philosophy. By that I do not mean multi ethnic, or even regional. Rather, from the perspective that our life experiences, norms, values and expectations help determine how we see things and how we react to them. For my message to get through I need to take my objectives and understand how to translate those objectives into stories, experiences and truths that you can interpret, understand and react to.
Measuring how effective I am being and constantly bringing that back to my objectives allows the story to stay focused, evolve and create a return.
Who is your Jung? What helped shape who you are today?
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