I set out to research a concrete explanation of the importance of face-to-face for Ticketleap. This is part 2 of 4. If you are looking for part 1, go here. Part 3 is here and 4 isn’t online yet.

A large part of how we see the world, and ourselves, is based on social identity theory. How many people have strong ties to their school sports team, or start conversations with strangers because they are from the same town? This is because we are more comfortable with people we can identify with. These groups of people we can identify with help us interact with the world.

So how do we decide what groups people belong to and how to categorize ourselves? Social Identity Theory involves three mental processes to evaluate others. And these processes take place in a particular order.

The first step is categorization. When we can put the people we meet into categories, we know how to interact with them. Think about how confusing it would be to travel if you couldn’t distinguish between the flight attendants, gate attendants, pilots and other passengers. We put ourselves into categories as well. By knowing what categories we belong to, we can figure out how we’re supposed to interact with people. As a passenger, no matter what airport you are in, you know what to do by following the lead of other passengers and listening to the flight attendants.

The second step is identification. Once we’ve assigned categories, we begin to adopt the identity of the group we have categorized ourselves as belonging to.

The more you think of yourself as a frequent traveler, the more you’ll adopt the identity of a frequent traveler (goodbye shoes with laces, hello strong contempt for those traveling with checked bags and full sized pillows). The more you identify with a category, the more your self-esteem is tied to group membership.

The final stage in social identity theory is social comparison. Once your self-esteem is tied up in a group, that group needs to compare favorably to other groups. The Mac vs PC ads are a classic example of this social comparison. Do you want to see yourself as young, laid back and hip, or old-fashioned and uptight? We categorize ourselves as hip, so we buy MacBooks. We want to compare favorably, so we scoff at people when they mention Windows.

So…what does this have to do with face-to-face?

Every time I see the word hack, I roll my eyes. But it fits here… Basically, you can hack social identity theory, get people to identify with your brand and have them be the best word-of-mouth advocates ever.

Here’s how it normally works:

Sally categorizes others into groups. Sally identifies with certain groups based on qualities she sees in herself, who she hangs out with and what she does. Sally’s identity and self-esteem moves forward based on feeling good about the groups she identifies with.

Here’s how to hack social identity theory:

Sally categorizes others into groups. Sally spends time interacting in person with you and your organization. She starts to identify with your organization, because why would she be spending time with you otherwise? Sally’s identity and self-esteem moves forward based on feeling good about you and your organization, with whom she strongly identifies.

Have you ever been to a conference where you spent most of your time hanging out with the same group of people? Did you notice once you got back, you recommended those people more to your network? This is how Yelp Elite works, too. The more Yelpers hang out together and get to do “insider-y” things, the more they’ll talk about the restaurants they go to, the food they eat and how great Yelp is.

Seth Godin talks about networking as a similar tool for hacking social identity theory. “Networking is always important when it’s real and a useless distraction when it’s fake.” he says, “Stop collecting followers on social networks that don’t interact with you.” While explaining the importance of in-person networking, as opposed to only interacting online, Godin does a great job of explaining how to use social identity theory to your advantage: