As a traveler and tourist, I admit that I find people taking selfies irritating.

It started last summer in Prague.  Walking across the Charles Bridge, taking in the history, my imagination – and view – broke as a series of wands with phones attached to them circled around me.  I learned that these were “selfie sticks” the tourists used to get a better angle on themselves as they snapped an inconceivable number of selfies.

Later, I visited majestic Bryce Canyon in Utah and again found myself surrounded by people more obsessed with taking selfies than taking in the geological wonderment of the canyon.  At any given moment, most the people I could see were taking a picture.  Everyone seemed to be taking selfies everywhere.

I couldn’t help but note how digital technology played a role in this change.  In the past, when we used film to take pictures, you had to be selective about each shot.  You had 24-36 shots in a role and that was it.

But with digital cameras carried as phones, every moment is an opportunity to take a picture.  Take 100, what does it matter?  And then, of course, you can turn the lens back on yourself to put your own smiling face into every shot.

Yes, every tourist in their Columbia jacket taking a selfie was a blight on the scene.  That is, of course, unless your job happens to be marketing for Columbia jackets…

Selfie Actualization

A study at the University of California recently found that taking selfies and sharing them with friends makes people happier.   They surmised that the act of smiling for the photo, savoring a moment of happiness, and sharing it with others brings about a version of “digital well being”.   So, while the photographic artistry of taking selfies is mostly nil, the psychological impact is positive.

Further speculation suggests that taking selfies is a new type of self-expression and even a step in self-actualization (to perceive yourself as your are, not as you would prefer to be).  Far from the act of narcissism people like myself judged them to be, taking selfies is a way for people to gain a measure of control of how they view themselves in the world, as well as how they share that view to create a sense of belonging .

Indeed, anyone who has a teenage daughter knows there is more going on with selfies than just seeing your face in a picture.  Selfies have powerful elements of self-expression, exploration, and interpersonal-connection.

The Ultimate Hero Shot

One of the goals of marketing is to get people to view a product in context of use.  This means that instead of just understanding the features of a product, consumers visualizes themselves enjoying the benefits the product offers.  For example, a website selling skis won’t just have picture of a pair of skis on the homepage.  They’ll have a picture of a skier cutting through powder under a perfect blue sky.

That picture is called a hero shot.  When it’s effective, it makes us feel the usefulness, joy, or exhilaration of using the product.

Enter the selfie.

The day I visited Bryce Canyon was chilly with a steady breeze.  But the person I saw wearing a Columbia jacket was all smiles.  She looked warm and happy as she comfortably enjoyed the majesty of the canyon.

For everyone person she shares that selfie with, it does the marketing work of getting the audience to envision themselves in Columbia’s marketing campaign.

Businesses like restaurants, beauty salons, entertainment centers, and sporting venues can all develop marketing campaigns around customer selfies.  Any product a person wears or physically uses can market through selfies.  They get increased awareness of their business when it’s tagged in the selfie.

In many cases this marketing is incidental.  It’s just your customer doing what people do nowadays.  In other cases, the business can create a campaign designed to motivate customers to take and post selfies.

For example, Calvin Klein did the #mycalvins campaign, where customers take a selfie wearing the Calvin Klein garment so they can get a chance to be featured in the online gallery.

Similarly, Toyota created #selflessie as part of a charitable campaign for Boys & Girls Clubs of America.  The result was hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations and some great PR for Toyota.

In many ways, the selfie epitomizes what digital marketing is all about.  It’s simple, personalized, and meant to be shared.  It’s visual and has strong emotional appeal.  It tells a story in a snapshot.  It creates awareness (of a product) but is content that’s welcome as social interaction.

Inbound marketing requires an increasing amount of lifestyle branding and storytelling to capture consumer attention.   The idea is to go beyond a sales pitch and get people to build the product into their lives.

The selfie is, in many ways, a physical manifestation of that act.  That gives it the potential to be the most effective customer-generated content for internet marketing.