Being disruptive pays. Following the pack does not. At least not for most people.
Starbucks was a disruptor as it changed the habits of a generation (as did FaceBook, Google and so on). But what is new today becomes old tomorrow. Today’s revolutionaries are tomorrow’s Old Guard.
A great disruptor doesn’t just do more than interrupt; it can change the face of the landscape. This is particular true of the customer experience.
Starbucks changed how and where we socialise, Amazon changed how we shopped…. So while we can quote the big disruptors I think that we can all disrupt, if only on a smaller stage.
You can zig when they zag. Go against the traffic. Challenge the notion of “that’s how we do it around here”.
Depending on your marketplace, think what would happen if you:
I am sure you get where I am coming from.
Robert Craven is the author of business best-sellers Kick-Start Your Business and Bright Marketing. He runs The Directors' Centre and is described by the Financial Times as "the entrepreneurship guru". Read more here.
Targeting customers through social media has become more and more prolific over recent years. Household brands through to much smaller start-up companies are using tools such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.
However, it is vital that when selecting the social media tools you intend to use to target your audience, you are selected the correct ones. For example, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn users all have very different demographic profiles, so there is no point using a tool like Facebook to reach a target audience of professionals aged 40+, when statistics show that around over 80 per cent of UK Facebook users are under 40.
Once you’ve decided which social media tool or tools you are going to use, decide how you’re going to approach it carefully. What are you saying and to whom?
There have been numerous examples of major brands attempting to conduct social media campaigns or stunts, which have badly backfired and resulted in a consumer backlash, and ridicule aplenty.
No brand can afford that kind of damage, no matter how large or small.
Always have the consumer at the centre of any social media activity, and think as they would. Add value for your consumer, and always think of how they will gain from your activity. For example, a Facebook page that offers discounts and information about your product or service is innovative and is likely to increase brand awareness virally.
Be different and try to make sure that your social media campaign is one that will get people talking and one they will remember. No matter how simple.
And last, but by no means least, encourage your consumers to engage with you through social media activity. Simply talking at them by posting regular updates sends out the wrong message entirely.
Social media is all about engagement and interaction, and is not a passive process.
If you can actively encourage consumers to get involved in these campaigns, for example by posting suggestions for new products ideas as part of a competition, they will feel that they have some ownership of the brand, and this is vital.
Consumers engaging with each other through social media and sharing brand opinion has a favourable reaction, not only because these consumers feel they have ownership of the process, but also because they are more likely to relate to others’ opinions about the brand as they seem more ‘real’ than direct marketing messages.
Finally, don’t forget that many mobile phones today have powerful interactivity and will be linked to platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. You can take advantage of this by developing a downloadable application, which can be done on a relatively low budget and connects you directly with your consumer. Just remember that an app needs to add value for your consumer. That way it will make their life easier and cement their relationship with your brand.
Howard Scott is digital marketing director at Sequence Digital. The digital marketing agency’s clients include the BBC, S4C, The Welsh Assembly Government, Storm Model Management and Rachel's Organic.
Facebook won't suddenly transform your business into a superstar sales machine. But it can help you win friends and influence people. But like anything else in life, this is about commitment, effort and starting on the right footing.
A lot of people still get sucked into the idea of thinking "if we build, they will come". And doubly so with Facebook — just because there's a huge audience, it doesn't mean everyone is suddenly going to beat a path to your door!
So it's as well to begin with the basics — think long term, trust in your network of friends and stay focused. With that in mind, here's my ten steps to create a powerful Facebook page:
Hopefully, that all makes perfect sense and you're inspired enough to venture forth and create an amazing page for your company. And be sure to come back and tell me how you got on!
So you want to get involved in social media – you’ve read about it, about how it’s going to help your business, and you’ve got some time at the end of the day to do something with Twitter and Facebook. But now the guy says you ought to be monitoring – and that could well cost you money. Do you need to do it? I say monitoring of some sort should come before you make your first post, and this is why.
A while back, there was an idea going round that social media was like a cocktail party, and you had to find the right people and talk to them. But when you got in front of the girl, it was like speed-dating with the next guy trying to muscle in on her – you had to act fast. Though I haven’t heard the analogy in a while, it is as true now as it was two years ago – if not more so, as the number of people on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn has grown, and the forums and networks have multiplied.
In today’s crowded online space, it’s more important than ever that your message goes to the right place. But when you are starting off, how do you know where the right place is? You may join Twitter and Facebook, but how do you know who is interested in what you have to say? Who is blogging about your particular area of business?
And that’s where monitoring comes in. When I go to a function, or a networking event, I stand in the doorway for thirty seconds, looking around, checking who’s there and who I want to talk to. In the same way, with social media, you should listen first – for mentions of your business area, for people talking about your subject.
Online there isn’t a doorway that you can hide in and watch; you need a tool. Plenty of others have listed the wide range of social media monitoring tools, from Social Mention, Giga Alerts, or Google Alerts, which are free, through Simple Web’s MediaGenius, Alterian SM2, and all the way up to Radian6, with many more on the side. These tools – to carry on a tired analogy – will help you to identify which part of the cocktail party to head to, and who to talk to when you get there. But without them, you’re going to be standing around, a lost and confused Billy-no-mates, on your own.
So, the morning session of Like Minds is over and we’ve covered two interesting presentations which have generated a fair amount of debate.
First up, Jonathan Akwue, the “digital thinker director” of Digital Public, offered “an outsider’s view of social media”. He took a challenging stance, insisting - to gasps -that “Digital technology does not always make things better”. Jonathan cited the example of self-service checkouts at supermarkets, which may have created cost-efficiencies for supermarkets, but are a source of consternation for many frustrated shoppers (although several Marketing Donut correspondents actually said they like self-service checkouts).
What social media has done, however, is release the inner gangsta rapper in all of us. Like hip-hop, social media have given ordinary people the means to control the channel of communication and to get their personal message ‘out there’ in an unfiltered form. Social media are “open source” and they are transforming the way we communicate and interact with each other:
You can use social media to change people’s lives,” Jonathan claimed. “You can use it to save people’s lives. We can make massive behavior changes."
Unfortunately, if you have such an open source communication channel, you need to be prepared for what people are likely to say – a point many corporates have yet to really grasp.
Jonathan was followed by John Bell, digital PR guru for Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence Team, whose “Time for a strategy - Beware social media tokenism” presentation focused on the need for businesses to generate and measure proper business impact through their social media presence.
Citing the example of ITunes on Facebook - which has three million fans - John challenged the easy view that numbers equal success. “Does this really mean three million people are engaged?” he asked.
He went on to stress the need for businesses to find appropriate ways to measure the impact of their social media activities and to only continue with activities that actually have a measurable business effect. Otherwise they are simply tokenism.
His presentation gave rise to interesting discussions around the value of having a social media policy and the kind of voice you should adopt on Twitter, to which several of our followers contributed:
@atkirby I think it's important to try and sound like a human being on Twitter, not a robot.
@7db Like biz attire: Wear (voice) what (how) your customer does.
@global_lingo Strong selling isn't the way forward but for B2B that can be a struggle.
So that’s it for the Like Minds morning session. We’ll be picking it up again shortly – please do follow our live coverage.
What a year it has been for the Marketing Donut! We have had such a busy time with bringing small businesses the best resources to help them with their marketing that we are having a well earned break over Christmas and into the New Year.
The website and all its resources will be fully available but this will be the last blog post and there will be no Twitter activity from @MarketingDonut until Monday 4 January when we will be back with a renewed vigour and determination to help your small business take on the challenges of 2010.
If your craving for small business donuts is so insatiable, why not gorge yourself on our Facebook Fan page? Start a discussion with fellow small businesses or ask the community a question. If you can’t stomach any more Christmas television or you have lost your Radio Times, head over to the Marketing Donut YouTube channel.
We would like to say a big thank you to everyone who has helped make the Marketing Donut all that it is so far, be that our experts, sponsors and you, our readers. We wish you all a restful Christmas period and a Happy New Year.
James, Simon, Rachel and Kasia - the Marketing Donut team.