Customers. Choices. Just a click away.
It’s a commoditized, gone-global marketplace with increasingly sophisticated, highly skeptical, information-hungry customers who know they have choices and know how to find them in a click.
They want to be recognized as individuals and increasingly will expect you to know their preferences and to communicate and deliver accordingly. Branding, positioning, differentiation, benefits, functionality or mission mean little if they aren’t relevant and don’t continuously engage customers and enhance their lives in some meaningful way. And more and more, they will actively support those who earnestly adhere to the new triple bottom line of people, planet and profits.
Don’t forget about the very short and selective attention spans. No matter how loud you shout your brand message and how hard you try to wave your brand image in their faces, they will hear nothing and see nothing if they choose not to. Especially if you aren’t in tune with interests, don’t know favorite channels, haven’t asked permission and constantly interrupt.
On the outside looking in?
And if you haven’t earned the spot as a trusted partner who delivers consistently and delights often by anticipating and addressing evolving needs, then there’s a good chance you’ll be on the outside looking in on customer-created communities. And you won’t benefit from the worth-its-weight-in-platinum positive buzz. You might suffer from the thumbs-down chatter. Or worse, no one will talk about you at all.
Push-only, monologue-driven gatekeeper models are giving way to time-and-place-shifting social networking technologies that bring unprecedented empowerment to proactive customers who increasingly know their value. They love to tell everybody, everywhere, what they think. You really can’t control the message any more, and your brand — more than ever — belongs to the marketplace.
You can’t hide behind the curtain anymore or just be a spectator in the box. You have to get out and participate. Because you can’t build strong partnerships on one-way conversations and assumptions about wants and needs based on internal navel-gazing assumptions.
It’s a paradigm shift. Embrace it!
These are exciting, paradigm-shifting, liberating times. Embrace it! Get out there and enthusiastically encourage conversation and participate in it. Continuously ask questions, and listen, listen, listen. Respond honestly, and in a timely manner with the right messages in the preferred channels. And deliver by utilizing the shared knowledge and insight to delight and innovate.
You do this with passion and focus and you will earn Social Currency. And Social Currency is essential if you want to turn connections into conversations that invite engagement, build trust, and evolve into partnerships for growth and sustainability.
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