Twitter: Your new love potion

Study finds Twitter triggers a chemical response, and it feels a lot like falling in love

If you remain unconvinced that it’s worth your while as a business to connect with people through Twitter and social media, this piece of news should send you hurtling over the edge. One researcher has found that Tweeting and status updating triggers the release of oxytocin (no, not happy pill Oxycontin) – a chemical closely linked to some of our most positive emotions like empathy, trust, love and generosity. Basically, your brain interprets tweeting the same way as talking to people you know and care about face to face.

It may seem like this news is mostly of interest to dating sites, but those feelings are key in all sorts of interactions that depend on trust – including economic ones. So how can making relationships in social media help your business? I can think of a few ways.

More receptive customers
With people feeling trust and connection on a personal level, they are more likely to hear you out and buy into what you’re telling them. This connection is increasingly important, as people want to feel a healthy relationship with brands and not as though they are doling out cash to a cold hearted corporation. But this needs to be built up genuinely – people can sniff out a phony a mile away.

Word of mouth really is that effective
That trust permeating social media circles all the way down to a chemical level means they are likely to take advice and recommendations to heart. So if you can get a positive wave going, those good vibrations will find their way back to you. But beware as this works both ways. If you make a bad impression, people will trust the negative comments coming from their network as though people they know and care about are telling them in person. Not having a presence in social media at all makes the risk of bad mojo getting out of hand all the greater.

Another reason to let employees tweet
Not only can employee tweeting make people feel more connected with and empathetic toward you, it can make the employees themselves more content. The study found that the increase in oxytocin also led to decreased stress. And that means they’ll be happier, healthier and more productive.

The results are preliminary and need further testing, but the insights they’ve uncovered into our biological reaction to social media could explain a lot as to why so many people show such hardcore devotion and trust in e-relations with people they’ve never met. It may well be that, biologically speaking, our brains can’t tell the difference between online and IRL. Either way, it should give you a lot to think about regarding your online interactions. 

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry.