Trap Language: How Businesses Get You to Stay and P(l)ay
This may not be music to your ears.
The Internet is a marketplace. That means it’s a place for selling things and selling you.
So everyone on the Internet should have a marketer's mindset.
On one hand, we want a more tailored shopping experience for the products and services we’re interested in. On the other hand, we dread wading through the swamp of unwanted ads. But to get what we want and need we must exchange some personal information. Once that information is released, it’s susceptible to hackers and others who want to learn more about our personalities and habits.
Mining Your Data for Votes
TechCrunch recently reported that Cambridge Analytica (CA), a UK-based data mining and analysis firm, paid $500k for data collected from more than 80 million Facebook users – without their consent – via a personality test app on the social media platform.
Why is this so important?
The tens of million whose data was compromised included both people who downloaded the app AND their friends whose Facebook privacy settings allowed the app to access some of their information.
According to a former CA employee, the firm was hired by the Trump administration to create digital programs that profiled registered voters. CA’s research focused on how they could influence certain types of voters with targeted messaging leading up to the 2016 Presidential election. They were searching for psychographic clues that would give insight into voter's lifestyles, motivations and their conscious and subconscious beliefs.
News like this tends to bubble up tons of questions about privacy, consent, third party access to our information, the type of content that’s created from that data and the multi-level marketing plans companies deploy to get that content to their audiences.
There Are Levels to Getting Info. to You
The best websites direct visitors almost seamlessly, but alot goes into informing and motivating audiences to act; so much is available about marketing practices, like this post that touches on eye tracking. English readers (and others who read from left to right) generally scan web pages in an “F”-shaped pattern, especially if viewer's eyes are not purposely directed to key elements on the page.
Online marketers and website designers use this type of research to plan where they place photos, colors, text, buttons and calls to action (CTAs). They look deeply at online reading patterns and what attracts the human eye. The methods range from child's play simple to rocket science complex.
For example, in my previous blog post on the translation industry, I flipped a couple of the photos that were originally facing the opposite direction. I wanted to make sure that Teresa’s face and eyes were facing the text, serving as a guide to direct the reader’s gaze back to the writing, hopefully prompting you to read all the way to the end. Of course the tactics don't work well if readers are 1. not interested in the topic 2. don’t have the time or 3. the writing is bad. It helps if all the elements on the page do their part.
Players...Not Played
If you do business on the Internet it just makes sense to present your work, services and products in ways your audience will run to.
Author and entrepreneur, Seth Godin knows something about modern marketing. He ranks so high in Google search that all you need to do is type “seth".
He advocates for the type of marketing that is based on building relationships with specific audiences by providing a combination of free information about their interests, building trust, and offering excellent products and services they already desire. Contrast that to old school method: pushy sales people who earn commission on selling you things you barely want.
It's the difference between a blog post that gives you some nuggets of actionable information versus clickbait that promises alot but ends up being a disappointing waste of time.
For all the ways the two marketing philosophies are different, there's still a common factor: marketing is about capturing attention. The end goal is getting consumers to buy into a product and make a purchase.
Read on for some examples that affect your day-to-day.
Banking Online
We know how credit cards work. Basically, you pay Credit Card Co. X to use their money to buy stuff you want/need now, but need to pay for later. You're hit with a penalty called interest if you don't pay back the borrowed money within the agreed time. This what I see when I sign on to pay my bills:
Here's a shot of the right side of the payment screen. What catches your attention? The bold “Pay this Card" in the top left corner? The red credit card or the blue "Make Payment" call to action button? Bold text and color helps to direct our attention and prompt action.
This pops up when I hit the “Make Payment" button. The drop down menu gives me the option to pay the minimum first or the full balance second. Regularly paying the minimum keeps you in debt longer.
Soooo How Many of Us Read Online Terms and Conditions??
Technology progresses almost too fast to measure. That means that all industries have to keep their fingers on the pulse of change when doing business on on the Internet, especially legal rights connected to web use.
Faith Mitton, Esq., 27, managing counsel at Mitton Law Firm, PLLC works at the intersection of law and tech. The virtual law firm specializes in advising web-based businesses and nonprofits on contracts and other legal documents rather than representing clients in the courtroom. “There are a host of legal issues specific to e-commerce that people need help with," Faith said.
One of those legal issues involves online terms of agreements. They're often a long, jargon-filled documents you must agree to before you begin using a service on the Internet.
Faith is in favor plain language online terms of agreement, but explained that prevailing traditional legal practices and company size play a role in why we often encounter complex ones.
Larger companies can and do spend the money to have their lawyers develop detailed online contracts because online agreements are as valid as ones you negotiate and physically sign. If there's ever a dispute companies want to have documents that hold up in court. Small business owners should aim for that too.
“In a retail context, if I go into a store I'm not going to find a long contract before I can shop. And that's not the same in the online world because as a consumer in the real world you can go into a store and make certain judgments about that company," Faith said. “You can look at the quality of their products; you can see what the customer service function is like; you can see if the facilities are clean. You have a way of interacting with the company and creating a base line that your relationship with that company is going to be built on. Just by going into their store. You don't get that opportunity in some respect with e-commerce.
“The terms and conditions do two things: they lay that baseline for the relationship. They explain things about the appearance and quality of products and set expectations. They [also] protect the business. Their lawyers are thinking about every possible thing that could come up in their relationships with customers. ”
If you decide not to read through the online agreements narrow your focus. “Pay more significant attention to those things that are critical to what you do," Faith recommends.
“If [for example] you are in the process of building a business and you're using social media as a way of doing that you need to pay careful attention to the terms and conditions because you want to have some knowledge about who owns the materials you're posting online. Once you click ‘I accepted you can't back out.'"
Peeking Behind Your See Through Robe: Privacy Online
The more we do online the more our activity leaves traces of our interests. There are companies that have created a business around making and selling profiles based on our online footprints. Remember the case study at the top of this post?
Attorney Rebecca Lipman argues in her article Online Privacy and the Invisible Market for Our Data that American consumers “deserve a rigorous notice and choice regime.” Consumers should know who is collecting their information and what they will do with it.
She highlights a model proposed by Lorrie Cranor, the former chief technologist at the Federal Trade Commision (FTC) from January 2016 to January 2017. The proposal says that we should have a system similar to the nutritional facts charts on our grocery products. Consumers would be able to quickly compare the privacy status of free sites and apps and decide if using a particular site is worth trading their personal details.
Based on Cranor's model, at a glance we would know:
1. What type of identifiable information companies collect
2. The types of third party partners who would also have access to our information
3. How our information would be used be used i.e. “marketing services”, “profiling”
Even though people hold a range of views about privacy on the internet - partly due to changing status quos in information sharing- viewing a concise chart might help to keep businesses accountable and help consumers evaluate products and services before clicking the agree box.
Navigating the Internet is Like Driving
Thinking like a marketer is like driving. It's an exercise in multi-tasking. You have to keep your hands on the wheel, mind the street signs, figure out where those ambulance sirens are coming from and stay aware of what other motorists are doing. We won't escape 100% of the potholes or avoid accidents altogether, but staying alert is key if we hope to reach our destination...safely.
Like driving, navigating online means staying aware of all the factors that impact our ability to get from point A to point B as we engage in online gaming activities, agreements or a simple Google search.
What are some ways you get caught up in the World Wide Web? Tell me in the comments.
