60 Minute Brand Strategist.
/via slideshare.net
Great insights in a clear and consise manner. Awesome work.
People don't want to use Social Media for Customer Service.
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Bottom line (and feel free to show me this answer if I am proven wrong, which I doubt): customers don't use Facebook to seek help en masse, nor to purchase through it.
Facebook is to enjoy strong relationships with friends and familly - at least for those people that are not in the social echo chamber.
Close your eyes. Imagine your favorite sports team. They're at the finals of their respective sports greatest cup/bowl/tournament. They're about to be winners. Remembered forever.
They lose.
How did that feel?
When I read this comment (see above) on the Forrester blog I felt that pang in my heart. Hard to explain why, but I did. And this is what I responded.
"Customers dont use Facebook today for sales or service"
I'm going to focus just on the service part (not the sales) and split that up into two separate issues:
-- Customers don't want customer service. --
Forget about Facebook. Customers don't want customer service all together. They want simple, easy to understand, easy to use products that don't crash, that don't fail. Customers want products that don't require customer service.
-- Customers want customer service - wherever they communicate. --
A lot of this will echo what has been said before. The idea that customer don't want to use a specific channel for customer service is unthinkable. Customer want to choose where they communicate and the emergence of different media had made communication lines around us ubiquitous and even more integrated. When consumers start a conversation on Twitter, they want to pick it up on linked in, continue it on Facebook and finish it with a Youtube Video. It's not about the medium, it's about the message.
When consumers purchase a product or service they want it to function. And if they need to talk to someone about it, they'll do it on their terms. As agencies and brands we need to realize that the piramid is upside down, the funnel is a circle, and earned PR is the only PR out there.
Now let's go build great brand communities and have them spread our brand message!
Why social thinking should permeate everything
/via youtube.com
Thomas Crampton interviews Martin Sorrell.
- Social media should permeate everything an agency does.
- Break away from silos.
- Congregate your agency around clients, don't huddle them in disciplines.
It's an interesting interview with one of the most respected business men in the business and one of the most respected thought leaders of the business. One of the things Martin Sorrell emphasized was the requirement for big agencies to permeate the social element into all the separate silos that an agency usually consists of. Thomas then goes on to talk about congregating agency players around clients and breaking them away from the disciplines.
An additional element is the consumer. Agency as partners should sit side by side with the client and huddle around their consumers. Find their core group and strengthen/grow their relationship with them. As an agency, steer your client to huddle around the consumer and have a human talk with them. To build that relationship and give them useful brand and customer experiences.
How the internet is changing story telling, and how this should change brand/consumer relationship
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Every new medium has given rise to a new form of narrative.
via wired.com
Story telling is a powerful tool in anyones arsenal. Sales people use it to get clients emotionally engaged in the product, advertising uses it to change consumer behavior, and parents use it to put children to sleep (imagine such a powerful tool). Story telling has been around since the beginning of man kind when we were drawing how to's of the hunt.
The last few years has seen a revival of story telling. People in marketing who talk about the importance of a narrative. But this has been around for so long, why suddenly the interest.
The rise of the internet has given the narrative a new medium. Consumers haven't seen such a shift since the rise of TV, and marketeers need to catch up.
The internet is interactive, immersive, and a hot bed for co-creation. Yet where are the great online customer experiences tied in with the brand story? I can count the notable ones on one hand.
Ex1: Old Spice Guy
Ex2: Huggies Social Bus
Ex3: Levi's after dark
In order of immersion, these brands are leading the storm into the interactive story. From the responsive Old Spice Guy singling out consumers, speaking to them one to one. To the Huggies campaign which highlights parents proud of their babies. To the Levi's after dark campaign which put the narrative in the hands of the consumer, successfully letting their brand ambassadors integrate the brand into a real life game.
The new future will see brands focusing on true dialog with their customers and expanding this relationship. The future where the advertising of brands is useful to the consumer, ensuring brand utility. A future where the customer experience is central to every undertaking by the brand, including its traditionally linear advertising.
Demographics gone wrong
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Companies love using demographics to customize their customer experience. Sometimes the psychographics of the customer do not match the average demographics. Stick to behaviors, stick to knowing what people actually like. Not so much what they're supposed to like.
