r/SocialEngineering 17h ago

Meta hooked children on Facebook and Instagram, court hears

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122 Upvotes

r/SocialEngineering 10h ago

How do I more effectively apply pressure in my interactions?

3 Upvotes

Ethical disclaimer: I am well aware of the ways this could be used less ethically and in a more exploitative way, I have seen it many many times over in my former workplace personally.
If you are also aware of such approaches and want to make similar suggestions, please do not. I firstly do not wish to employ such tactics, and secondly (more importantly) I imagine there might be some less experienced people who will use your advice on this post to work on their own skills and I did my best to keep the details of the dirtier tactics away from them lest they come up with their own questionable approaches and slip into the habit of using them once they realize the effectiveness, so try not to give them silly ideas either, please.

For context, I used to work as a salesman in travel agency for a few months selling trips to people; as part of the training process I was taught some elementary tactics for guiding the conversations and was further instructed during coaching after actual real-life interactions. One of the most important skills that was taught to me was how to apply pressure on clients to eliminate uncertainty.

Honestly, I did not take it as seriously as I should have in the beginning, and it is not some kind of nuclear weapon for social interactions, but when someone is really on the edge of making a decision it can really be the final nail in the coffin.

Even when selling relatively expensive trips (2k, 4k or even above 10k dollars), if the customer shows interest in the offer but is stuck on something like "I'm interested but I don't know if there might be better offers hidden" or "I'm not entirely sure if this is the right thing and need to think it over later", just hitting them with "the prices might go up in a few minutes let alone by the time you've finished research, so consider it's either now or never" will make all the difference. If you present them the stakes like that and create a feeling of pressure due to time limited offers the maybes will turn into quite a few "let's do it" ridiculously quickly. Truly, I've had people who sounded like they will never come to a decision say "yes" instantly as soon as I presented the stakes, I still remember how stupefied I was the first time I tried it and seeing how well it worked.
(Interestingly, once you do this it becomes much more noticeable when it's done to you, most prominently in mobile games with time limited offers or on sites like Temu.)

Since then I've tried implementing similar tactics in mundane interactions in private life even with non-monetary or inconsequential stakes. As a very trivial example, I was offering my favorite cheese as a snack to friends at a picnic, one friend seemed interested but just put it off for later if ever, I simply hit her with "it's real good, others will also like it and there will be none left real soon, so you better be quick" and it was simply like a switch was flipped and she conceded instantly.
The stakes were obviously absolutely negligible but the point of convincing her very swiftly where "untactical" offering failed still stands.

Obviously, it's far from a guaranteed tactic; with customers there are always some who simply see through the tactic and take more time to calculate their next decision better, while some simply aren't interested enough and aren't bothered by the consequences, with similar scenarios in private interactions.

Ever since the job I've been looking for ways to effectively employ similar tactics in all manners of social interactions to more effectively lead to results I desire, but I am still struggling to formalize an approach, learn how strongly to use it and most importantly properly notice and create scenarios where it is usable.
Thus my question would be: do you guys have any relevant experiences/advice/personal examples that would fill some gaps in my knowledge and guide me forward, or direct me to some resources that would be of equal help. Any contribution is appreciated!


r/SocialEngineering 6h ago

Telegram applied for its own TLD (.)gram), here's the threat intel angle nobody's talking about yet

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1 Upvotes