Twitter Archives - Page 25 of 30 - Post Control Marketing

Marketers need take wisdom of the crowd seriously. I remember before the days of social media reading forwarded complaint letters from customers with wild visions of the true intentions of our ads. It was truly amazing what they dreamed up and saw. Our animated talking coffee bean was a little fresh talking, but one viewer said it looked like something very different and offensive and recommended we should be fired. We based it on a picture of a real coffee bean – I didn’t know what else to say.

Back then it was easy to laugh off such hallucinations. But today single comments and reviews are much more powerful. And social media conversations tend to be more about product experience that comes from operation’s delivery. That doesn’t mean marketing is off the hook. We make the service promise that sets up expectations. If we say the coffee is fresh on TV, but it’s not in just one store, complaints come in the form of tweets, Facebook updates, ratings, reviews, comments and even videos. Or some consumer may discover the coffee beans come from growers who don’t promote humane working conditions – more cause for public complaint.

A Forbes article made this point recently saying that the new power of consumers to influence brands has moved past being just a new marketing and branding tool. What if store employees start tweeting about the quality of the coffee and customers start commenting new flavor ideas? Now you have HR, PR, operations, product development and marketing involved. Like it or not the crowd is in your business. Transparency is the new norm and it’s contagious.

In my Social Media Marketing course I ran an impromptu social media test. It started when my car wouldn’t start on the first day of classes. The local garage quoted me $450 to $650 for an alternator. After just spending a couple hundred on the brakes I sought another solution by visiting the TDI Club Forums.

Then in class we talked about the big shift in Web 1.0 to 2.0 where people communicate directly with user generated content through social networks instead of being passive receivers of what large organizations choose to share. That’s when I thought of the experiment.

You see, veteran TDI Club member “Wingnut” from Toronto detailed, with pictures, how to replace an alternator and convinced me that I could do it too. I said that if I could successfully fix my car from a forum post, then Web 2.0 has really shifted power to the people – even a professor who spent his previous career creating ads not fixing cars.

I found a new alternator at Auto Parts Warehouse for $150 and a coupon code that saved me more money. Within days it arrived, I had it in my car in less than three hours and the car is running great! The check engine light even turned off and that has been on for years.

I am now on the Auto Parts Warehouse email list and have “Liked” their Facebook page with 34,000 other empowered car owners.

In full discloser, I did receive help from my wife’s uncle who is mechanically inclined but not an auto mechanic. He also admitted afterward that he wasn’t sure if we could do it. But we did.

So social media passed the test. Consumers are empowered and that means marketers must learn new ways to engage them. The good news is engaged consumers may be worth more money in the long run.

A new eBook by Sitecore indicates that fully engaged customers represent a 23% premium compared to average customers in terms of share of wallet, profitability, revenue and relationship growth. The problem is 87% of customers are currently disengaged. How could marketers in and around the auto industry further engage empowered consumers?