Social media gives us all — you, me, your customers — the ability to create and publish content, for free. So why does that matter to you and your company?
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I read a very interesting post from Karl at Experience Curve on Amazon’s decision to sell 2 million MP3s DRM-free. In the post, Karl offers commentary on the service, and he also details the process of purchasing and downloading an album from Amazon.
Now think for a minute how social media has changed Karl’s ability to write about Amazon adding DRM-free MP3s. If this had happened say 5 years ago, Karl’s best option might be to comment on the service on a message board and/or chat rooms, and review the service maybe on a site such as epinions. In other words, Karl would have to go through someone else to create and publish content.
But today, Karl can publish commentary and a review of the service, complete with screenshots of him purchasing and downloading an album, all on his blog. Social media has given Karl the ability to freely create and publish content. Then after posting to his blog, Karl can go to Twitter and promote his new post. Karl posted to Twitter earlier today: “Bought my first DRM free MP3 album from Amazon, the results were very good,” and included a link to his blog post.
But what if you are thinking “I still don’t get how this impacts my company”?
It impacts your company because now your customers can create, distribute, and promote their own content via their own channels. What they say about your company is no longer a cyber needle in a cyber haystack buried on an obscure online forum or in a chat room. Your customers are gradually morphing into online publishers.
Take Experience Curve for example. Karl’s Feedburner widget displays that the blog was accessed by over 2,000 readers yesterday. That puts Karl’s monthly readership just from feed subscribers at over 60,000.
Is your company’s website getting 60,000 monthly visitors?
Clay Shirky was interviewed by The Gothamist in 2004, and when asked where blogging was heading, offered this:
“So forget about blogs and bloggers and blogging and focus on this — the cost and difficulty of publishing absolutely anything, by anyone, into a global medium, just got a whole lot lower. And the effects of that increased pool of potential producers is going to be vast.”
Which is exactly why you should care about social media.
Mack great post. It reminds us why we should be looking at and acting on building a social bond with our customers and prospects. These people are not only a revenue source but also a distribution media to spread the word.
And I think the key point, at least as it pertains to Karl’s post, is that he has complete control over the creation and distribution of the content. He has created his own content distribution channel, with a feed readership of over 60,000 a month.
When a company’s customers can create and communicate messages more effectively, and to a larger audience, then it’s time for that company to figure out what the deal is with social media.
Mack,
Excellent post.
“But what if you are thinking “I still don’t get how this impacts my company”?
Exactly. Since consumers are already talking to each other, why wouldn’t companies want to engage them directly in conversation themselves? As Harry stated, consumers aren’t only part of the revenue stream, they’re part of the marketing scheme, whether companies realize it or not. When we talk about forming deeper, more meaningful relationships with the customer: social media presents us with a golden opportunity to do just that.
“As Harry stated, consumers aren’t only part of the revenue stream, they’re part of the marketing scheme, whether companies realize it or not.”
You’re exactly right. Karl was using his content distribution channel (his blog) to advertise Amazon’s online music download service (and indirectly, he was promoting Amy Winehouse).
This creates a golden opportunity for companies to empower their online evangelists to market for them, by being smart enough to talk to these people and begin to develop those meaningful relationships that you are talking about.
It’s VERY frustrating for those of us that are in this space and understand it’s enormous potential, to see companies ignoring the possibilities of social media.
You know, Mack, I’m not sure if companies are deliberately ignoring social media, or they’re just intimidated by something that’s still fairly new and that they just don’t understand. Or maybe they’re loath to invest resources in something that hasn’t meaningful metrics in place yet.
What these companies are losing sight of is this: it’s never a bad investment when engaging the consumer in a positive manner. . .metrics, or no metrics. Beginning modestly, experimenting and augmenting successful social media approaches is probably the best way to go.
RE: “ignoring social media”
In my experience, one reason companies hesitate to engage via social media is fear of bounding bravely out there, only to put a foot wrong. Or likely, putting a foot squarely in one’s metaphorical mouth. I’ve observed a few blogstorms (from a safe distance, thank goodness), and I don’t want to spark one through inexperience or failing to understand and adhere to the “netiquette” du jour.
Also, in a company of any size, those folks who do ‘get’ social media and see its potential also appreciate the risk of diving into it only to have colleagues who *don’t* truly ‘get’ it hijack the effort and run afoul of the ethos. Blasting rather than listening. Bloviating rather than being authentic. Being defensive rather than learning from honest feedback.
High visibility in the social media realm can certainly be high return…but with high visibility often comes high risk. New frontiers usually are not for the faint of heart!
Thanks for the post Mack, and you’re right, it’s a very new situation for companies to have their products openly discussed in a global forum. Companies for a long time have relied upon a certain amount of information scarcity, if their product sucked it took a long time for word to spread. Enough marketing dollars could usually offset pockets of negative word of mouth, because unless you were a local business word of mouth didn’t scale. The point is now that word of mouth does scale, and it can have the same reach as a glossy ad campaign, and in the end people trust people more than they trust companies.
“Or maybe they’re loath to invest resources in something that hasn’t meaningful metrics in place yet.”
Good point Ted, but notice what you see at the top righthand corner of Karl’s blog? A Feedburner widget that shows his daily # of feed readers, which for today is 2003. That puts Experience Curve’s monthly readership at over 60,000. And that’s just feed readers, add in traffic directly to the blog, and that total could increase dramatically.
If Amazon finds Karl’s post, and sees that over 2,000 people a day are reading his blog, I think they can immediately get an idea of how impactful his posts are. I am seeing more and more blogs with these Feedburner widgets.
Good post. Its interesting though that you label a blog social media. My take is that social media has a more collaborative, gathering place, viral feel than a blog. For me the only piece of a blog that is a little social is this, comments. Social for me is more about sharing, voting and ranking, creating, comparing, collaborating, etc. LinkedIn is a social network, FaceBook too. Blogs seem like democratized publication with a dash of social via the comments. Maybe just splitting hairs a little?
Best Regards,
Jerry Renoe
http://theverbz.blogspot.com
Great topic!!
I think either way companies need to engage these communities to gain a better sense as to what is being said openly about your products/services. I believe I saw a stat that said that 77% of consumers research their products from opinion based sites before making a purchase.
An entire generation of consumers is growing up in these networks and are both influencing and being influenced.
An open collaboration between company and community may help spur positive sentiments towards your brand in droves.
I think you’re all forgetting something very important here:
Karl is blessed with the ability to write interesting and relevant content. That’s why thousands of people read his blog.
It’s a rare talent.
Most consumers have zero interest in writing a blog, documenting their experiences, etc. Or reading about other people’s experiences. In fact, I’d guess “get a life” would be as common a reaction to Karl’s Amazon post as “that’s interesting.” (sorry K, but it’s true.)
“57 channels and nothing on.” While the pool of potential producers is getting bigger since anyone can now publish anything, the quality of what’s out there isn’t getting much better.
Yeah, your customers can rat you out online. But part of the reason those posts are so effective is that the idea of them is still new and they’re still quite novel. Get back to me in 3 years and 3 million posts about how much company X sucks, and we’ll see how many people still want to read them.
Not that we should dismiss social media altogether, but to paraphrase Larry David, we need to Curb Our Enthusiasm.
Or at least tamp it down a little.
I think you make some good points Tangerine. This is a nebulous market and we’re not quite sure what to make of it just yet. If I’m X Company and I’m trying to “flog” a social networking site I’ll most likely get sniffed out due to my lack of authenticity.
However, I disagree with you on this front. The sites that are worthy of your attention are those that geared towards your industry. Engadget for instance is a great venue to see what potential electronics consumers are saying about a given technology. They’re truly interested and passionate about this industry and will fervently recount their experiences. They’re also more likely to be consumers of influence from a word-of-mouth standpoint.
I think its essential for all companies to not only know what consumers are saying in these platforms, but reach out to them to gain insight as to what might be missing.
I believe we’re moving towards a collaborative age and the traditional views of company/consumer will most likely be rewritten.
I recently read that the Nabisco 100 calorie snack pack was an idea put forward by a consumer who was looking for a portion controlled snack as opposed to a diet snack. Its now a $100 million industry.
“I think its essential for all companies to not only know what consumers are saying in these platforms, but reach out to them to gain insight as to what might be missing.”
I can’t agree more with Brian…that’s why the ‘get’ for co’s on social media is to listen (not try and lead and influence)and learn when and how to reach out. Here it’s a tool for research & development + marketing + customer service. But many co’s will feel that listening is losing control when in fact, it decreases their risk on several fronts. (and I love the 100-snack pack category).
Toad – I hear you on the 3 million rants. What companies and consumers will want to know is: 1) when I type in my “company name + sucks” into Google, how many results come up? 2) what is the net/net of the rants and the raves?
ps: Oh how I wish I had typed in my computer model + sucks into Google last November before I bought it, I learned only AFTER that it has several quirks that you only find out about right at 120 days of ownership (no it’s not a Dell).
@Brian: Not sure how we’re in disagreement. A site like Engadget is a perfect research tool. Ditto sites about anything people are passionate about (sports, books, video games.)
The danger is that there aren’t that many things people are passionate about. So you’re not going to find an Engadget equivalent for say office supplies.
To CK’s point- the key thing is to listen. And if 70% of the posts about your product are pointing out the same fault, well then, it’s time to fix it. At which point the only sane way to “engage” consumers is to tell them “yeah, we hear you, we’re going to fix it. Sorry.”
“Good post. Its interesting though that you label a blog social media. My take is that social media has a more collaborative, gathering place, viral feel than a blog. For me the only piece of a blog that is a little social is this, comments. Social for me is more about sharing, voting and ranking, creating, comparing, collaborating, etc. LinkedIn is a social network, FaceBook too. Blogs seem like democratized publication with a dash of social via the comments. Maybe just splitting hairs a little?”
From my point of view, it’s social media. For example, I found the idea for this post from reading Karl’s blog. I read Karl’s blog because he’s an online friend of mine. In fact, most of my ideas for posts come from reading other blogs, and the comments from my readers. I think it’s possible to isolate yourself and not allow comments, and not read other blogs, but I think you are doing yourself a huge disservice by doing so. Blogs have always been social for me.
“ps: Oh how I wish I had typed in my computer model + sucks into Google last November before I bought it, I learned only AFTER that it has several quirks that you only find out about right at 120 days of ownership (no it’s not a Dell).”
Are you talking about your desktop or laptop CK? I ask because yesterday I was in a Wal-Mart looking at laptops, and I heard a voice ask ‘Are you about to buy one?’ I spun around and for the next 5 mins or so a gentleman told me about his experiences with his Toshiba laptop, and evangelized the company to me. I told him that I had heard good things about Toshiba laptops, and that I would seriously consider them.
But if he had a blog, this man could have shared his passion for Toshiba laptops with far more people online, and perhaps just as importantly, Toshiba could reach out to him as an evangelist for their products.
BTW more food for thought: Recall that in Karl’s post, he was primarily blogging about buying and downloading MP3s via Amazon. But he also mentioned that he bought and downloaded an Amy Winehouse album as his way to test the service.
According to Alexa, traffic to Experience Curve is currently about double what the traffic is to Amy Winehouse’s website.
It might be worth the <5 mins it would take someone from Winehouse’s camp to send a quick ‘Thank you’ email to Karl for his post. They could obviously do much more, but that’s assuming that they understand why they should want to do much more.
@Mack: I am talking about Toshiba – eek! Actually, to be SPECIFIC, I’m talking about the Toshiba “Satellite” series laptops…they’ve had many problems.
They run beautifully, eloquently and then, without rhyme or reason (well the reason is faulty insides, they shut down.
For 2 hours.
And then they shut down again to the point of not being usable.
And it makes you look REALLY sharp when you’re in the middle of a presentation. Oy.
While I’ve (knock on wood) got it working again, I would not have bought this had I done that search.
PS: Again, this is a problem that is limited to the “Satellite” series. Just to be clear.
“And if 70% of the posts about your product are pointing out the same fault, well then, it’s time to fix it. At which point the only sane way to “engage” consumers is to tell them “yeah, we hear you, we’re going to fix it. Sorry.”
I agree, Toad. But I’m taking it one BIG step forward with my clients and advice–if they have the processes in place to “listen” from the get-go then companies can:
1. Be aware when the negative feedback starts (before it hits a fever pitch of 3 million posts) and reach out. It’s time for them to join the convo at that time.
2. Reach out to the people submitting negative AND positive feedback and ask them if they’ll sit on a Customer Advisory Board (a board that does not place too many demands on them and does require only honest feedback). They can’t ask everybody to sit on the board but they’ve been given an opportunity to ask people who’ve had good and bad experiences.
In fact, I see Customer Advisory Boards as likely a company’s most important initiative–when they’re done right. But that’s a whole post in itself.
“PS: Again, this is a problem that is limited to the “Satellite” series. Just to be clear.”
Yikes! I believe we were looking at a Toshiba laptop from the Satellite series yesterday. I’ll also be looking closely at Dell laptops, since my Dell Dimension desktop has been all but bulletproof for 6 years now.
“From my point of view, it’s social media. For example, I found the idea for this post from reading Karl’s blog. I read Karl’s blog because he’s an online friend of mine. In fact, most of my ideas for posts come from reading other blogs, and the comments from my readers. I think it’s possible to isolate yourself and not allow comments, and not read other blogs, but I think you are doing yourself a huge disservice by doing so. Blogs have always been social for me.”
Fair enough. In fact I agree that in aggregate blogs have a social element, and particularly a set of blogs on the same topic(s). I just think its instructive to talk about the social element versus the democratic element. I just posted myself about this last night. (http://theverbz.blogspot.com/2007/09/democratic-vs-social.html)
J
Fair enough. I do think that a set of blogs, particularly ones on the same topic(s) have a social element. But I still find it instructive to differentiate and think about the social element and the democratic element. My recent post on the subject.
http://theverbz.blogspot.com/2007/09/democratic-vs-social.html
J