Tag Archives: conversation

Customers Don’t Want Ads, They Want a Conversation…Just Not the Conversations You Want to Have

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Somehow I don’t think these are the conversations consumers are looking for from brands

Fast Company just published another article discussing how customers are no longer satisfied just with good products and services or low prices – they want collaboration and conversation from brands. In another Fast Company article from January, they state that “brands, marketers believe, ought to start acting less like things and more like people, and they should engage traditional humans, their consumers, in dialogue.” IBM’s Global CEO Study found that 88% of CEOs said “getting closer to customers” was the top priority for their business over the next five years. Amazon has 200 books in their “social media for business” category all using the same cliches – have two-way conversations, engage with your customers, be more human, etc.

Finally! Social media is going to change the way business works. Brands will come down from their ivory towers and customers will have actual input into the products and services they purchase. Brands win! Customers win! Social media saves the day! Unfortunately, the “conversations” most brands are trying to have with their customers aren’t exactly the ones so often described in these books, presentations, studies, and blog posts. Rather than co-collaborating on new products, discussing the strengths and weaknesses of current ones, sharing new ideas, and having conversations about corporate issues, brands are asking begging and groveling for likes, shares, and comments. Brands have become that annoying insecure friend who always tries just a little too hard and is constantly looking for affirmation from those around them.

“I texted you 8 times last night but you never texted me back? Are we still friends?

“Pleeeeease come over and hang out tonight…please??”

“I was just calling to see if you got my email asking if you wanted to go out tonight. If you come out, I’ll buy the drinks. You in?”

Ummmm…sure – just don’t forget you offered to buy. Unfortunately, this is the relationship most brands have with their customers in social media – “please please please like me!! If you do, I’ll give you some free stuff.” They beg you to like, comment, and share pictures of cats, ask questions like “what’s your favorite number?” and jump on the bandwagon of whatever trend they can find (side note: the Condescending Corporate Brand Facebook page is one of my new guilty pleasures). Somehow, I don’t think these are the types of conversations that Fact Company, Harvard Business Review, and IBM had in mind. For most customers, liking a brand in social media isn’t about engagement or conversations. It’s about transactions. If you give me something (coupons, discounts), I’ll put up with your annoying habits (spamming my social media feeds). Instead of using social media to rethink the typical business-to-consumer relationship, they’ve just moved their same old business practices and metrics to a new medium. Instead of actually building mutually beneficial relationships with you know, actual people, marketers have reduced social media to a series of algorithms, likes, and clicks. Harvard Business Review conducted a study last year that should be required reading for every brand marketer and social media guru. In it, they debunked three common social media marketing best practices –

  1. Most consumers want to have relationships with your brand (no, they don’t)
  2. Interactions build relationships (not these interactions)
  3. The more interactions, the better (please, make them stop)

You should go read the whole post, but if you don’t, at least heed this piece of advice when managing your brand’s social media efforts –

“Instead of relentlessly demanding more consumer attention, treat the attention you do win as precious. Then ask yourself a simple question of any new marketing efforts: is this campaign/email/microsite/print ad/etc. going to reduce the cognitive overload consumers feel as they shop my category? If the answer is “no” or “not sure,” go back to the drawing board. When it comes to interacting with your customers, more isn’t better.”

What kinds of conversations is your brand having with its customers? Are you bastardizing social media by begging for likes and shares  instead of deriving some value from them? Brands have all these tools at their disposal to tap into the hearts and minds of their most important stakeholders – their customers – and yet most let that power waste away with pictures of cats and Call Me Maybe videos. Be the better brand. Instead of asking for a like, be the brand people actually like.

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Stop Trying to Take the Easy Way Out

Lazy Peep by Flickr user [F]oxymoron

I attended the PRSA Digital Impact Conference last week, and like many PR events, it had a mix of really great presentations but I also noticed the continuation of a disturbing trend throughout our profession – laziness. Laziness disguised as "social media best practices" and cool new tools. 

Don't get me wrong – I don't think people are actively trying to be lazy. I don't think most people even realize that they're trying to take the easy way out. I think they view it as becoming more efficient or effective. And while many of these tools and practices may help someone increase their reach or save them some time, they are also making social media a hell of a lot less social. Why are marketers and PR pros doing everything they can to eliminate the most beneficial part of social media – the people? We are taking what should be a boon to our industry – social media – and making the exact same mistakes we've been making for years with other media. We're reducing relationships to impressions. We're eliminating conversations in favor of automated Tweets. Auto-DMs have replaced actual introductions. Hell, ghost-tweeters even allow you to remove completely  yourself from the equation altogether. People, relationships, and feelings are complicated – metrics, statistics, and tools are a lot easier to deal with. 

Imagine if we could do the same in the real world. Tired of going on all those dates without that…ahem…"payoff" you're looking for? Here's a tool that will let you isolate the targets most likely to deliver said payoff. Tired of all those boring conversations with your wife about how her day went? Here's a tool that will play auto-responses from you so that you can focus on watching the game instead.  I'll just use this app to create a hologram to sit at my desk even when I'm not there and auto-talk with the people I work with. That way, I can be "interacting" with my co-workers 24 hours a day!! 

Dan Perez wrote a post a few months ago – "The Bastardization of Pinterest Has Begun: A Rant" – where he noticed how marketers, advertisers, and PR people have flocked to Pinterest, crowding out actual conversation in favor of more and more content, infographics, and promotions. Social media used to be about people connecting with other people. Forming and strengthening actual relationships. Sadly, it hasn't taken long for people to figure out how to game the systems, how to eliminate actual conversations (those take time, you know) and minimize actual relationships (those can get messy). 

Like the kid scoring 10 goals on wraparound goals on NHL '94 (seriously, if you played that game, you know what I'm talking about – that play was unstoppable) or blocking extra points with Lawrence Taylor on Tecmo Bowl, people are sucking all of the fun and authenticity out of our social media platforms via tools and practices that promote automation and efficiency over relationships and conversation. 

Integrating social media into your public relations and marketing strategies can be difficult and if you haven't already done it, it's only going to get harder. There are a lot of PR professionals out there who think it's going to get easier – there's going to be some new tool that will automate everything, some new "best practices" that they can copy, or that some social media playbook is just going to appear that gives them the step-by-step of how to "do social media." There will always be people claiming to have tools and methodologies that will maximize your time in social media or to eliminate the time you spend Tweeting with only one person (if you would just Tweet between the hours of 3 and 4 on Tuesdays, you'll maximize your reach!!). 

Don't be one of those guys. Be the guy who values actual relationships and conversations over likes, impressions, and followers. Instead of trying to game the system, take some time and actually enjoy the people you're getting to know. Being able to blast your generic press releases out to 10,000 more people isn't a good thing. Focus on sending it to the right 1,000 people instead. Talk with a reporter about the stuff he's writing before you need something from him. Instead of measuring your success by how much stuff you put out and how many people it may have reached, measure your success by how many people actually read it, shared it, and did something with it. Just like playing Tecmo Bowl or NHL '94, gaming social media is easy, fast and unfulfilling. Building actual relationships and talking with people takes time, can be messy, and isn't real efficient, but it's much more rewarding. 

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