Iconic character, Ferris Bueller, from the popular 1986 movie, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” instantly captures the hearts of anyone he crosses paths with, of course with the rare exceptions of his principal and sister.
When Ferris dramatically fakes sick to skip school and venture through downtown Chicago, his entire town falls for his tricks. They go so far as to even paint “Save Ferris” on water preservation towers visible for everyone to see.
What is it about him that makes him so universally likable? Why, 30 years later, are we still obsessed with the ever so charming Ferris Beuller?
Let’s take a closer look at our all-time favorite trouble maker. Ferris’s personality is very high in a psychological trait called self-monitoring.
Self-monitoring refers to the extent a person intentionally varies their behavior across interactions with different people to influence how others perceive them.
When your personality is high in the self-monitoring trait, you search for clues in the environment about how to act. Clues can be as obvious as what one’s talking about or as subtle as body language and tone of voice. You interpret these clues and adjust your behavior according to the situation to make sure others have positive reflections of you.
On the contrary, if you’re low in the self-monitoring trait, you let your inner personality guide your behavior. Rather than reacting to the uniqueness of each situation, your behavior is more consistent throughout all interactions with different people.
Being high in self-monitoring predicts popularity and acceptance. If you’re able to act exactly how each individual wants you to act, you’re going to be widely liked.
Ferris is high in self-monitoring - he searches for clues in the environment on how to act and adjusts his behavior to get the reactions he desires. His flexibility to act accordingly to clues in different interactions is what makes him so charming and likable.
While he gets the girl he’s in love with, the school hallways are filled with girls dying to date him. He’s got an endless supply of friends who look up to him. The teachers actively miss his presence when he’s sick for the day. His parents think he can do no wrong.
If your website could have Ferris’s charm and all the quality relationships that come with it, wouldn’t you want that?
Fast forward from 1986 to 2016.
With rapid advancements in technology, the world is very different than the one Ferris grew up in. Ferris would not be able to pull off nearly half of the shenanigans he pulled back in the day, especially with apps like Find My Friends.
Technology is so intertwined in our lives, so there is a huge focus on making it “user-friendly.” Humans need to be able to pleasantly interact with your website if they’re going to convert to customers.
Marketers try to create a great user interface (UI) by making their websites attractive and easy to interact with. Now, marketers even try to build their websites with character and an awesome personality. For example, at almost every website you visit these days you’ll encounter clever copywriting.
But many websites lack one of the most important personality traits: self-monitoring.
While most marketers rely on big data, humans are too complex to accurately predict how they will feel or behave in a certain moment or context. You can have big data on a visitor’s preferences, demographics, and past purchases, but that information is not enough to decipher real-time intent.
How a visitor behaves in each moment is influenced by many factors and is, in fact, quite irrational. Websites need to take advice from Ferris and begin searching for clues from their visitors’ digital body language in that moment.
Digital body language is similar to what you already know about body language. However, instead of interpreting facial expression and posture, you’re analyzing online behaviors such as mouse movements, clicks, and scrolls.
These online behavioral patterns reveal what your visitor is feeling in that moment and their intent on your website.
Digital body language holds the key to what your visitors want from your website. For example, if a visitor is aimlessly scrolling, he or she is probably confused by your website. That visitor would like if you react to their behavioral clues with some form of clarification to help them find what they’re looking for.
When a visitor comes to your site, it’s important to personalize the experience beyond what you know about their demographics and past behaviors from big data. Your website needs to embody the self-monitoring trait. Analyze your visitor’s digital body language to decode their intent in that moment, then react according to the clues in real-time in order to convert them.
Digital marketing technology is the missing link between your website and its “personality” being high in self-monitoring.
Tools such as Reactful analyze your visitors’ digital body language and reacts in real time to make sure to win them over. Reactful’s algorithm continuously evolves to predict how to best react to each visitor, making your website even more effective in self-monitoring.
Each user is different and wants a different experience, so these tools give you the power to interpret visitors’ cues and intentionally adjust your website to influence how your website is perceived.
If you give a visitor a positive experience tailored to their needs and wants, you’ll charm your visitors like Ferris would and reach your goal of optimizing conversions.
You’re dealing with humans, so you must be sensitive and react accordingly to their overpowering emotions. It’s not easy, and if we all could be as high in self-monitoring as Ferris, we would be. However, with today's brilliant technology, websites are getting steps closer to having the power to be just as likable as Ferris.
If Ferris taught us anything but getting out of a boring day, it's to observe, understand and react well to those you interact with.
