Razor Branding Blog
On St. Patrick’s Day, a leprechaun visited the Pre-K and Kindergarten classrooms at school. Much to the delight of our daughters, the leprechaun messed up papers, turned the teacher’s chair upside down and left footprints on the students’ tables.
Their visit was the center of discussion at dinner that night. Maggie, 6, informed all of us that if you caught a leprechaun, you could have one wish. I asked her what she would wish for and she gave it deep thought and decided “all of the superpowers”.
Jordan, 8, said there were too many things on her list to choose just one and asked if she could force the leprechaun to give her more than one wish. (This should be great insight into her personality and how difficult the next 10 years will be for us.)
After I stifled laughter I started to think about super powers in the context of my job. What super powers would be best for us to have as a branding agency that would most benefit our clients.
Mind Reading.
Yep, Matt Portman Heroes-style mind reading.
How great would that be. Talk about consumer insights. Real genuine consumer insights, not just what the loud mouth in the focus group thinks makes her sound cool.
But, then I realized that we are developing that power now. Social Media gives us the power to read minds. To eavesdrop on people’s conversations. To see them actually interacting with the products in their own lives, not just in a staged test in the lab. To hear people around the world talk about a product…good or bad. If they hate it, you will quickly find out why as they tell all of their friends. If they love it, you can just quickly realize it when they turn in to brand advocates.
Branding is all about the emotional connection that a consumer has with a product or company. Social media is the perfect set of tools to hear if that emotional connection is being formed or not.
Ahh, to be a fly on the wall and eavesdrop on all of those conversations…what an incredible super power.
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I’ll go ahead and translate Andy’s post, since I am a Social Media Mind Reader:
“Something I hear often is that business owners are afraid of putting themselves out into ‘Social Media World’ because they don’t want to lose control of their image.
The real great thing about putting yourself out there is that you are showing that you understand how much you are not in control of your brand, but that you are in charge of your business. Consumers are in control of your brand - so give them the power to communicate that with others on real terms.
If a probelm arises, you have the chance to interact with them not as The Man, but as Their Man.”
I want that super power.
That’s one thing that our clients are having a hard time understanding. They want the easiest, quickest and cheapest way to reach their consumers and end up failing every time. They need to invest in the “connection”. I couldn’t agree with you more. Bravo!
I often hear business owners vent their fear of Social Media as a way that they “lose control” over their business. That they are scared that someone may say something bad that the whole world can see.
Social media allows consumers to feel like they are one with the company. What better way to connect with your consumers than to give them a feeling of ownership?
Here’s hoping that someone DOES complain within Social Media (versus on the street), so that it is track-able. Then you, Mr. Business Owner, can go back and fix the problem in real time, through a real site, with real results being documented for everyone to see.
Through social media, business owners can truly connect to their consumers - Not as ‘The Man,’ but as ‘Their Man.’
Great feedback. Thanks.
TTS, I think you hit the nail on the head regarding “loss of control”. So many clients don’t want to participate in a two way dialogue. They only want a monologue that they can control.
Do companies have to “participate” in social media? Can’t they just listen, at least in the beginning? Isn’t that the point of the blog? The super power you are referencing is the power to hear other people’s conversations. It’s the power to use Google Alerts and Twitter Alerts and search to know how people are feeling. If corporations just start there that will be huge improvement, then once they understand the value of the tools, then maybe they will want to participate in the conversation.
Listening is great but responding is what will generate the connection with the consumer. Just listening is creepy and kind of like spying. Then you end up like McDonald’s. They set up a blog asked people to provide feedback and then ignored everything they said. That doesn’t help anyone.