I just read a blog post by Tim Leberecht, VP of Marketing and Communications at frog design, titled The new Digital Divide. Tim is annoyed with senior marketers' resistance to jumping into the deep end of the social media pool:
"After participating in a Digital Brand Think Tank in Munich a couple of weeks ago (a lively discussion with 20 marketing executives from Audi, BMW, Google, Continental, and other top-tier brands), I must admit that I’m a bit tired of having to evangelize (or even justify) the value of brands using social media. It is astonishing to me that companies still ask for evidence when the tweet is on the wall."
The tweet is on the wall? Really? Of all of the companies that I associate with, and the brands that I buy, social media participation would fall somewhere near the bottom of my long list of things they should do today to improve their customers' lives.
Innovation is not about carefree experimentation. It's about ideas applied successfully. It's about carefully choosing what, where, when and how to invest limited resources, including people's time, emotional energy, and attention to add the most value to customers' lives.
Marketers, we need you now, more than ever, to be the voice of value creation for the benefit of your organizations and other brand constituents (customers, suppliers, communities, et al). So please don't let the frustration, and persistence, of the Social Web ecosystem cause you to aimlessly invest those scarce resources in "following," "friending" or "tweeting."
Bonus link: Don't Keep Up With Social Technology
Posted August 3, 2009
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Tom is timely, thought provoking and all about the new brand vision packaged as a Seinfeld stand up. I went to school on his ideas.
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Tom,
I agree about not following, friending or tweeting. However, I doubt that there is a single brand that I use that has an easily found social media contact or email address that I can use to easily connect with someone who gives a $#!& about my experience with their product let alone could do something about it.
I believe companies need to jump into the social media pool as a means to listen to, connect with and interact with their customers.
Posted by: Ken Gregg | August 03, 2009 at 11:03 AM
In my experience, *limited resources* are the exact reason that companies need to learn NOW how to utilize social media. It costs exponentially more money to research consumer needs in a formal program. While it only covers articulated needs, it's cheap and effective guerilla market research to follow twitter trends, audit online product reviews, and track the trends with great tools like SocialSeek, http://www.sensidea.com/socialseek/download.html. I confront these issues with every client - no budget, and no idea what people need. Well, they're out there telling you. All you have to do is look.
Posted by: melanie conklin | August 03, 2009 at 04:03 PM
Tom, I remember what my father said after he bought my very first guitar when I was 8.
He remarked that it doesn't matter how expensive or how cheap your musical instrument is so long as you play it as wonderfully as you can.
The same goes with social media. So long as you can use it successfully, why not jump into the social media pool?
Posted by: Strategic Growth Advisors | August 03, 2009 at 09:46 PM
Tom, I remember what my father said after he bought my very first guitar when I was 8.
He remarked that it doesn't matter how expensive or how cheap your musical instrument is so long as you play it as wonderfully as you can.
The same goes with social media. So long as you can use it successfully, why not jump into the social media pool?
Posted by: Strategic Growth Advisors | August 03, 2009 at 09:46 PM
Tom, I remember what my father said after he bought my very first guitar when I was 8.
He remarked that it doesn't matter how expensive or how cheap your musical instrument is so long as you play it as wonderfully as you can.
The same goes with social media. So long as you can use it successfully, why not jump into the social media pool?
Posted by: Strategic Growth Advisors | August 03, 2009 at 09:47 PM
Tom, I remember what my father said after he bought my very first guitar when I was 8.
He remarked that it doesn't matter how expensive or how cheap your musical instrument is so long as you play it as wonderfully as you can.
The same goes with social media. So long as you can use it successfully, why not jump into the social media pool?
Posted by: Strategic Growth Advisors | August 03, 2009 at 09:47 PM
Tom, I remember what my father said after he bought my very first guitar when I was 8.
He remarked that it doesn't matter how expensive or how cheap your musical instrument is so long as you play it as wonderfully as you can.
The same goes with social media. So long as you can use it successfully, why not jump into the social media pool?
Posted by: Strategic Growth Advisors | August 03, 2009 at 09:47 PM
Thanks for the comments folks. And I agree with you all: If you can do it well and you can learn and improve, then by all means jump in!
I wrote: ". . . don't let the frustration, and persistence, of the Social Web ecosystem cause you to aimlessly invest those scarce resources." The key word in that sentence is "aimlessly."
I'm advising you to think about the what, why and how of your actions. Scenario plan. Is your organization prepared to act upon customer and employee insights? Could your operation effectively handle a huge uptick in social media-enabled real-world customer interactions? Will the quality of social interactions enhance the customer's experience with your brand?
Play every instrument that you can play wonderfully, AND which will enhance your brand's coherent performance over time.
Posted by: Tom Asacker | August 04, 2009 at 09:43 AM
Tom,
I agree with your point about the use of social networking, be it aimlessly or not. Data collection alone does nothing to innovate or improve anything. How or the degree to which this information gets used internally is what adds the value and therein lies the problem. It all comes down to leadership and the relationship they have with the "internal" customer. Invest in that relationship first and the benefits may eliminate the need to fund another "listening post" that yields more useless or inaccurate information
Posted by: Dave Wheeler | August 07, 2009 at 12:49 PM