What Is Parasocial Interaction?
Parasocial interaction is a term widely defined in terms of the psychological relationship of the audience with the celebrities or people they see on mass media. When the audiences watch the performers, it gives them a feeling of being part of the situation shown.
In most simple words, parasocial interaction is described as one-sided relationships that media users engage in with any media performer, influencer, etc.
The concept is not limited to only TV and mass media anymore. Instead, the internet and parasocial interaction have become closely related. Parasocial interaction is also an aspect that is often related to the internet and digital media. It’s highly relevant to today’s media like YouTube, Netflix, etc.
The Origins
The parasocial interactions were introduced by R. Richard Wohl in 1956, and he defined it as ‘Conversational give and take between a media user and media persona.’ Here, the media persona is the performer, influencer, celebrity, etc. The media user refers to the audience.
A common misconception lies about parasocial relationships and parasocial interactions. The parasocial relationships happen beyond the media experience and are more like real-life relationships. On the other hand, parasocial interactions happen exclusively when consuming media or interacting with an influencer via media. It’s a psychological illusion of real-life interaction. However, the mediation of social media has made parasocial interactions and relationships operate along a continuum.
Using It In YouTube Marketing...
Your YouTube content and marketing also generate a parasocial interaction for the audiences toward you. It can be defined as the psychological relationship between the audience and the influencer they’re consuming content of. Your audience thinks that they’re at a personal level of interaction with the influencer or person they watch on the media.
As a real estate agent, YouTube provides a medium where you can share your content with the audience who consume the information as per their requirements. Since the internet and YouTube are more-consumed media than TV, it provides a vast playground for the realtors to capitalize on YouTube marketing and content marketing.
How To Create Parasocial Relationships
If you want to create a parasocial interaction of the audiences towards you, it requires you to be seen more often. It’s only possible if you’re creating enough content to keep your audiences engaged. If you have covered all the areas of a niche, it increases the chances of being seen by the relevant audience more often.
When you focus on posting regularly on your YouTube and comprehensively cover the niche you’ve chosen, it results in many benefits associated with parasocial interaction. Here are a few of them:
- The audiences built an interest in the content after exposure. They consume more and more content leading to relationship progression.
- If not real, the users have an illusionary personal interaction with the person. It induces more trust and loyalty toward the influencer.
- Regularly updating content on your YouTube comprehensively also builds your perception as an authority in the specific niche.
In Conclusion
If you want to improve your online presence, it’s important to use a parasocial marketing strategy. This strategy involves leaving no niche area unattended. When you do this, anyone looking for keywords related to your niche will be redirected to your content. In this way, the first name that hits an individual’s mind when he thinks of a niche will be yours.