WTF is a "parasocial relationship?"

Sup Greenblasters!

Have you ever heard the term:

“Parasocial relationships?”

That’s what I’m gonna talk about today.

(Warning, this one’s a littler longer, but I hope it’s thought provoking enough to be worth it!)

The concept of parasocial relationships is one of the most important things to anyone making a living in the internet age, and I don’t think people understand it like they should.

So today, I’ll talk about:

1. What they are and why they exist

2. Why they’re useful for entrepreneurs, creatives, and biz people

3. The dark side of these relationships

4. And how to cultivate them in a healthy way

Ready?

Ok good. Let’s go:

1. The fuck is a “parasocial relationship?”

Think of your favourite actor for a moment.

Or musician. Or even TV character.

Do you feel, on some level, like you know them?

Like you’re invested in their success, laugh when they say something characteristic, and care about what happens to them?

That’s a parasocial relationship.

These relationships, like between a celebrity and their fans, are one-way connections between two people:

Person A feels like they know Person B, but Person B isn’t even aware of Person A’s existence.

Pretty wild when you think about it, eh?

And yet I believe it’s deeply human. Think about it:

Our brains are not wired to see someone’s face, hear their voice, listen to stories about their lives and NOT feel some kind of relationship with them.

Back in ancestral times, the only people you would know this intimately would be your fellow tribe members.

So of COURSE you feel like you know people who you have so much knowledge of and exposure to.

Well, you say, that may be interesting, but are you telling me all this?

2. They’re EXTREMELY useful for business

Basically, the more parasocial relationships you develop with others (where THEY feel they know YOU) the more opportunities you have in business.

I wanna share some evidence of this, that I myself have noticed since building 4.5K followers on LinkedIn.

Almost ALL of my business comes from LinkedIn. I don’t chase it. It comes into my inbox, all because I create content and tell my story on there:

I’m not sharing this to brag, or to feel better about myself.

I want you to know how powerful sharing content online has been for my business, in the hope that it inspires YOU to start doing the same.

People reach out to me like they know me, and offer me business, speaking opportunities, podcast invites, and all sorts of shit.

And I’m a still a relative “nobody” (i.e. 4.5K followers is not much).

But I’ve built a completely inbound sales pipeline, all through putting myself out there honestly and consistently.

Pretty cool, especially cause I fucking hate cold emailing 😢

3. The dark side of this force

Of course, these relationships can be toxic, even downright dangerous.

Think Mark David Chapman or Kevin James Loibl, 2 obsessed fans who murdered celebrities because they felt personally betrayed by them.

Not to mention all the stalkers out there, who may or may not know their victim, but create a romantic relationship in their own head.

And now, in the age of social media, every one of us who posts anything has followers who we don’t know.

This is creepy, in a big way. Because we don’t know who these people are, what they want from us, or how grounded in reality their parasocial relationship with us actually is.

So what to do about this?

Stop posting? Quit social media all together? That would probably be a great idea for our collective mental health.

But for now, given how lucrative and exciting social media is for business owners, let’s agree we’re not ready to do that.

Here’s how I recommend sharing yourself online to:

4. Cultivate “healthy” parasocial relationships with your audience

This comes down to 3 things for me:

1. Share honestly

2. Don’t try to go viral

3. Keep your loved ones far away

• If you share about yourself honestly, and vulnerably, I find that people treat you as an equal (or as close to it as possible) rather than some kind of superstar.

• If you “stay small”, as in not posting things to be controversial or fluffy so that they can spread quickly, you make sure that your audience is built on people who truly connect with you, rather than any random person

• And personally, I’ve never shared my daughter’s face on LinkedIn. I think it’s way too exposing, she can’t consent to it, and the couple times I posted pics of her on Instagram, I felt strange about some of the comments I received. Nothing that felt dangerous, but it seemed that people were engaging TOO much, and I felt like I’d crossed a boundary.

NOTE:

I’m still early in my “audience building” journey.

This newsletter might get to 100K readers;

My YouTube channel, which I’m starting in earnest this year, might go crazy.

My LinkedIn might eventually blow up.

I might change my mind about ALL of this.

But for now, this is my best advice on the power of parasocial relationships, and how to use this twisted force for good.

That’s it for this week!

As always, please SHARE this email if you liked it, reply HUMAN to make me feel less alone (good luck with that), and…

Greenblast, out