2010 is going to be the “Year of the Social.” With that being said, I am starting a “This Week in Social” video series where I will talk about the changes in our industry, the successes and failures of companies in the space, and just continue the excitement of what we are seeing on a weekly basis. Please come back every week and play along.
Every day, I have over 300 blogs fed to my Google Reader with topics ranging from Cycling to Kansas City events; from mobile technologies to Social Media, and every day, I find value in certain blog posts which I “share” with my followers, friends, and colleagues. But every once in awhile I see a blog post that I have to write about. Yesterday was one of those days.
One of my most consistent blogs that I read is David Armano. Yesterday he had a great interview posted with Bruce Nussbaum, contributing editor of BusinessWeek, discussing design, disruption and innovation. The discussion regarding Social Media really caught my eye.
David: “Social media” for the lack of a better phrase seems to be on everyone’s mind. What’s your take on the current state of matters related to this? Where specifically do you see opportunities and what should we as both citizens and members of the workforce be mindful of?
Bruce: “Social media” has evolved to the point where we should drop the word “social.” Most media is now networked, engaged, participatory, looped. It’s the norm. Social media is where Gen Y live and social media is where aging Baby Boomers are gravitating toward. We are still sorting out the technologies and rules of the game for social media. There are different cultures for different platforms. You have to study these cultures as if they were different villages in different continents.
I see virtually all corporate consumer business, retail, media, education and health moving onto the social media platform. Think Mint vs. Intuit (which just bought Mint). I believe hybrid social media models will develop that integrate the personal with the network. I think one of the next big things will be in cheap, portable video conference systems that link to social media systems that make them much more personal. Let’s face it, Skype sucks, especially compared to HP’s Halo system but Skype is free and Halo is expensive. So far. A disruptive technology in video conference could make a huge difference in both social media and social business platforms.
I encourage you to read the entire interview. I think we are all still thinking of social media as a thing, when it truly is a cultural and communication change. We are all gathering around the new shiny social media platform to chat and not understanding what is going on to create the popularity of this type of change or understand the meaning behind the conversations. However, conversations (people to people, people to computer, computer to computer) are happening everywhere, not just on these social platforms.
We need to think beyond the social platforms and understand how we can create a web presence to facilitate these conversations. The web is slowly becoming a complete social platform. If we don’t understand why this is happening, we’ll never successful in this space. What are your thoughts?
Hello blog… I’ve missed you… It’s great to be back. Lot’s of lessons, lot’s of stories, lot’s of experiences. I’ll fill you in on it all in time. But for now, i’ve had some thoughts that I want to take a few months to talk about…
I’ve had some theories over the past couple of years that I think I’ve found the missing link to. Over the next few weeks I’ll be discussing technologies, social strategies, marketing tactics, business intelligence components, and how it all relates to customer engagement and rentention.
As we go along, I’ll be raising some questions and hopefully provoking thought. I encourage you to play along…ask questions, engage in conversations, and even argue with me. Thanks for playing…
Welcome back…The past few days we’ve been going step by step to build a brand in today’s business environment. Part 1 discussed segmenting the population to highly targeted, highly defined individuals. In Part 2 we described how to create “segment stories” with the core brand message being communicated effectively to each niche segment. Yesterday, in Part 3 we began building awareness using a strategic combination of traditional and non-traditional tactics. So, basically we left off with our segment individuals raising their hand to engage with our new brand. Now what? Conversation.
This is the really scary part for most marketers today. In the past we have been “pushing” messages until the consumer purchased. Easy. Now, the goal of marketing is to create and maintain customers by building a brand that is malleable and will fit into the lifestyle of the consumer based on their personal wants and needs of our products/services. The only way to create this type of brand is to have an open, two way conversation with each consumer who raises their hand. Conversing with a consumer is a scary beast. What if we mess up? What if we say the wrong thing?
Marketing a Brand is like Building a Personal Relationship
We all have personal relationships. That’s the reason we are engaged so much in the social media realm; to maintain old and create new personal relationships. So why would we be afraid to do this for our brand? The basis of any relationship is communication. Think about how you met your best friend, your spouse, your business partner…It didn’t just happen. It was a series of communications that lead to self disclosure, identifying commonalities, and living experiences together. That’s how marketing should be handled today. Like a new relationship of a best friend, spouse, or business partner.
It’s not brain surgery on how to figure this out. Listen and give. Listen and give. Grow on what has happened in the past. Laugh, joke, cry, experience things together… That’s how you create a malleable brand that will become part of an individual consumer’s lifestyle. Think about your life without your best friend, spouse or business partner…scary, huh? Imagine having our customers feeling that way about our brand… What a great feeling that would be!
Use Technology
With the technologies that we are currently using as marketing silos (database or CRM marketing, social media, email, texting, personalized direct mail, personalized urls, etc), we are fully capable of creating a system that would be able to build these types of relationships. Once the consumer raises his/her hand to begin a conversation, we append it in a database. Then each and every conversation or communication point with that individual needs to be appended to the same database. With this information, we can listen to their wants and needs from our brand and give it to them. We can customize marketing communications, converse in the public social sphere; suggest customized product offerings, etc… Basically we would be able to create a brand that would fit perfectly into their individual, personal lifestyle. We grow with the consumer.
Conclusion
Don’t stop the conversation when the consumer actually raises their hand to learn more about your brand. Dive in and converse back. Learn about them and disclose information about you and your brand. Participate in consumer relationship building like our own personal relationship building. Engage. Relationships like this take time, consistency, dedication, and action. Don’t be afraid of your customers… Engage with them.
Your thoughts
What are your thoughts? Is it possible to create a relationship system utilizing technology? Leave a comment and let me know. Check back tomorrow for the conclusion of the series…Part 5.
Paul Miser is a social interaction junkie; ever-chasing the perfect fit for the social communication strategies into the integrated marketing concept.
