# Breaking Through the Glass Case of (Digital) Emotion

- Link: https://chatterblast.com/blog/breaking-through-the-glass-case-of-digital-emotion/
- Published: 2017-10-27T14:25:48-04:00
- Author: Valerie Hoke

Earlier this week, [we took a dive into the world of emotive content on social media:](http://chatterblast.wpengine.com/all-that-digital-drama-juggling-emotion-on-social-media/)
What it is, why we post it and how it manifests.

We’re all guilty, as individuals and as brands. And I shouldn’t even use the word“
guilty,” because we shouldn’t be at fault for how we feel. Like all things, though,
there’s a limit, and the never-ending cycle of sharing our feelings on social media
is nearing one.

## **Remind me what we’re talking about…**

Drama. Digital drama, to be more specific.

Your Facebook friends’ posts full of phrases like “I’ve lost my faith in humanity”
and “this isn’t normal.” The videos from brands that ask you to sniffle with tears
over an inspiring story of a person overcoming illness just as a mechanism of advertising
a product or service. The angry tweets we all send about horrible customer service
experiences and how we’ll never give a brand our business again.

https://twitter.com/valperiepal/status/772433842770702337

https://twitter.com/anaisnicolee/status/824334878049267712

> no, *you* just got emotional from writing to your 1-month old nephew in your [@amazon](https://twitter.com/amazon?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
> gift message text entry field.
> — snitzposting (@snitztopia) [December 4, 2016](https://twitter.com/snitztopia/status/805455480189546496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

https://twitter.com/kylekraj/status/835160360021868544

https://twitter.com/BrewmasterBones/status/869650741488758785

> Anger is always born from emotional investment.
> — Matthew Ray (@matropolis) [February 5, 2012](https://twitter.com/matropolis/status/165947878106341376?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

_Yeah, we do it too. We told you_. _(Whoa, I just put you on blast, my Blasters.)_

The thing about emotional posts, though, is that not just individuals can make them:
Brands can, too. And if a brand can get us to feel as fired up and passionate as
we do about the latest breaking news story, isn’t that a major win?

## **My feels, they hurt **

Say hello to The Dream Scenario™ for brands: Make people react to your content with
the same intense emotion they exhibit in their own personal posts, without sacrificing
reputation or money.

Now, no major brand is going to start sharing sizzling hot takes about the very 
things that trigger those “lost my faith in humanity” reactions from individuals.
That would be too partisan, and most of the time, partisanship = bad. (Bad for that
reputation and that cold hard cash, mind you.)

What brands _can_ do, though, is learn to create content that makes us feel those
passionate emotions without even mentioning the core source of those feelings, therefore
maintaining their public neutrality.

Example: Take **Coca-Cola**’s infamous “America the Beautiful” spots aired during
two recent Super Bowls (2014 and 2017).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYVu7tRXuoM

The ad, as you probably remember, features several young people singing “America
the Beautiful” in different languages, so that the whole song threaded together 
asks viewers to think about unity, togetherness and nice things like that.

Nowhere in the commercial do you hear words like “diversity,” “prejudice” or “immigration,”
but you don’t need to—you just _know_ that those are the words they are intentionally
planting in your brain.  

When people reacted to the commercial in mass on social media, those are the very
words they had in mind, too, but at the end of the day, Coca-Cola had an out: their
commercial just featured a song.

There were those who found the ad emotional and moving:[](https://chatterblast.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Screen-Shot-2017-10-27-at-9.30.35-AM.png)

And those who thought it was “disrespectful” to the United States for broadcasting
a patriotic song in languages other than English.

https://twitter.com/surfersnout/status/828597235956989953

> Coca cola, quit airing the America the Beautiful commercial that sings it in multiple
> languages. It's disrespectful. [#boycottcoke](https://twitter.com/hashtag/boycottcoke?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
> — Terri UCR (@terriucr) [February 8, 2014](https://twitter.com/terriucr/status/432003228507447296?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

https://twitter.com/alexisssssxoo/status/430571815103373312

Coca-Cola, of course, knew exactly what they were doing. They got their online buzz.

We’re (mostly) smart people, though, and we know when we’re being pandered to. Brands
can’t expect us to fall for this strategy forever, because we are THIS CLOSE to 
being so thoroughly oversaturated with emotional content that we can hardly stand
to look at it anymore.

## **Welcome to the Facebook Rant Bubble**

The other day, Blaster-In-Chief **Matt Ray** was pondering this concept of emotive
content out loud: “There’s got to be a bubble, right?”

Yes. And it’s about to burst.

[[

What Matt meant is that _we can’t do this forever_. Expressing how we feel isn’t
easy, and if we keep up this cycle of constantly sharing our anger, sadness and 
lack of faith across the most easily accessible channels in our lives—our social
media accounts—we’re going to exhaust ourselves.

Think about it: If my _own_ feelings are exhausting, why should I want to read _yours_
on Facebook? The more and more emotive content we see, the less and less we’re going
to pay attention, because it’s just _too much_. This is why accounts that share 
memes and absurdist humor are so popular: They’re an escape from the norm, the same
way that social media _originally_ felt when we first started using it.    

Soon, if we see content that’s asking us for an emotional response, we’ll start 
turning the other way. We’ll just be so, so tired.

So how can brands and marketers get around this?

Meet **Mr. Brand**. He’s thoughtfully considering how his audience is feeling at
this specific moment in time.

[[

After that thoughtful consideration, he’s planning how to adjust his messaging and
content accordingly.

[[

Mr. Brand’s answers to these questions are going to help him determine whether or
not his audience is in the mood to _feel_, to be informed or to be simply entertained.

If it’s been an exhausting week full of widespread sadness, Mr. Brand will consider
his audience’s appetite for further emotional stimulation and decide that instead,
we might just need (and appreciate) a good laugh, not a sob story.

Similarly, if Mr. Brand sees an opportunity within current events for emotional 
content that aligns perfectly with a core part of his mission and, well, brand, 
he will take it, and his audience will appreciate the action of taking an authentic
stand on a social issue.

As marketers, we should try to be like Mr. Brand, because despite the vast amount
of data we can collect about our audiences and their user behaviors, we still can’t
quite pinpoint their feelings unless we channel our human ability to empathize.

## **Where can you start? **

The first step in getting a better grasp on emotive content is reevaluating the 
processes you currently have in place. Are there opportunities to insert more empathy
into your customer service team’s response methods? Can you initiate a process of
reviewing all scheduled content at the start of each day to eliminate anything that
just doesn’t mesh with that morning’s general mood on social media given whatever
nonsense everyone has woken up to?

Of course, your strategy will depend on the type of messaging you’re convening and
the type of people you’re addressing. But at the end of the day, we’re all humans,
and we’re all capable of empathy. (Except for maybe the Cheeto guy.)

Let me be clear: There will be no lack of emotion in our future. But there _will
_be a lack of willingness to deal with it if it’s not what we want, when we want
it.

Now let’s think about our feelings and listen to a banger: