Last Wednesday I held my Think Like a Rockstar blogging class for the Content Marketing Crash Course at Marketing Profs. The course is over, but if you want to view all 17 classes, here’s information on how you can. I’ve been spending a lot of time on the Rockstar analogy this year, covering why rockstars have fans and companies have customers. I’ve done so, because there’s an extremely important lesson for companies in the rockstar analogy:
Rockstars and their fans have the same conversation.
Or at the very least, they have more similar conversations than most companies and their customers have. The disconnect between how the rockstar views its fans and how the fans view its rockstar, is far less pronounced. Which means the conversations that each group is having about the other, is more similar. A big reason why is because most rockstars SEEK engagement with their customers. They not only listen to the conversation that their customers are having, they participate in it.
Contrast this to most companies, who not only lack engagement with their customers, they often FEAR that engagement. As a result, the company is having an internal conversation about the customer with little to no input from or interaction with the customer. And likewise, the customer is having an external conversation about that company, without any involvement and interaction with that company.
Participating in a conversation changes that conversation.
Prior to launching its company blog, Graco discovered that 68% of the online conversation that customers were having about and around the Graco brand, was positive. That’s not bad, but 18 months AFTER launching its company blog, Graco found that the tone of the online conversation its customers were having had shifted to 83% positive. Additionally, the company found that 99% of the additional online mentions that the company gained in the 18 months AFTER launching the blog, were positive. The blog gave Graco a vehicle to directly connect with customers and interact with them. As a result, the online conversation that Graco’s customers were having about the brand, changed.
Interaction breaks down walls.
Likewise, a lack of interaction between the company and the customer strengthens walls and silos conversations. Then you are left with two groups that each are having a conversation with the other group, without actually knowing that group. Which means neither group really understands the other, and as a result, doesn’t trust the other group.
But as interaction between the two groups happens, the conversation the customers are having begins to be understood by the company. And the customers begin to better understand the company’s point of view. Hugh was talking about this five years ago. As the company begins to understand the customers’ point of view and incorporate it into THEIR conversation, that conversation that the company is having becomes more familiar to the customers. Because the company is starting to speak in a language that’s more easily recognizable to them.
Interaction leads to understanding, and understanding leads to trust.
So this interaction is prompting change in both the internal and external conversations. By better understanding the company, the external conversation the customers are having about the company, changes a bit. And likewise, as the company begins to interact with its customers and better understand them, that internal conversation it is having about its customers, changes a bit.
Most importantly, the walls around both conversations weaken a bit. The distance between the two groups shortens. Both conversations become a little bit more familiar to the other group, and as a result, both groups begin to trust the other a little more. Four years ago I wrote this on The Viral Garden:
As we correctly anticipate the consumers’ wants and needs, and fill them, a trust is developed, which leads to the consumer lowering their defenses and letting us interact with them on a deeper level. This leads to a greater understanding of their needs, which means we can more quickly and effectively meet these needs, and thus the cycle is created.
And that cycle creates an incredibly powerful barrier to entry for other companies. It also creates fans and advocates for that company.
Trust leads to advocacy.
At this point, the company has interacted with the customer and become so familiar with their conversation that the walls around each conversation are starting to blur. The voice that the company speaks in becomes more familiar to the customer. Which makes it easier for the customer to trust the company, because they are speaking in a voice they recognize.
Their own.
And that makes it much easier for customers to advocate on behalf of a company that they believe have their best interests in mind.
Wait, this isn’t about smart social media usage, this is about smart business.
Exactly. Customer conversations are increasingly shifting online and to mobile devices. Customers are finding new tools and technologies every day to help them more effectively and efficiently communicate with each other. And they are getting up to speed on these tools and technologies faster than companies are. But if companies can follow the lead of their customers and become efficient at using these tools and in the same way their customers are, then they’ll win. It’s not about becoming a better marketer, it’s about becoming a better communicator.
Here’s to better communication in 2011.
Nowadays, it is not a thing you can use (social media) when having a business, but it is a MUST HAVE! This basically ends solutions for introverts:
Mack,
I feel like we’re both on such similar pages today with our blogs – it’s all about the relationships and being open to how we can be of help to others.
I think when you look at the rockstar relationship you’re feeling that one-on-one connection that is much more difficult with a company made of thousands. I love that what you’re presenting here is what it looks like when the company enables itself to be seen as a group of individuals – able to have those deeper one-to-one connections that create the cycle you wrote about so accurately four years ago.
Thanks for this excellent summary for 2010 and way to rethink business for 2011, Mack!
@LisaPetrilli
Thank you Lisa. I also think the important thing is that by participating in the external conversation that customers are having, it changes the internal conversation that a company has about itself and its customers. Dell is a great example of this, they’ve gone from purposely ignoring bloggers, to opening a ‘Social Media Listening Center’ devoted to helping them better track the very conversations that they once ignored.
Hopefully in 2011 we can shift away from tool-centric thinking and think of the broader possibilities of the connections that these and other tools help facilitate. I know that will be where I will try to focus.
Some companies don’t realize the importance of communication between their representatives and their customers. This leaves room for huge marginal errors and unsatisfied consumers. The customer could be anyone down the manufacture chain; producers of certain parts, shipment, sales rep., customer, etc.
Hi Mack!
This is a topic that is near and dear to my heart for obvious reasons. I know we did chat on twitter this morning, but with 140 characters I didn’t say much and left with a fragmented conversation.
Obviously, I LOVE the image you picked to go with this blog. And I think you make such a great point about corporations needing to drive customer advocacy, and I love the rock star analogy. Up and coming stars sometimes have “street teams” they connect with through blogs and forums. I recall back in about 2003, I signed up to be on the Charlotte Martin street team, and when she came to San Francisco, I was sent a few posters and my job was to find places to post them in SF. It worked and I did. (I briefly lived in SF in about that time frame). Well-established stars tour and often do meet and greets just before or after their shows.
On the topic of Starbucks…I apologize that I am using your blog to expand on it here, because your examples were mainly from Graco and other large brands.
Howard Schultz was once quoted as saying, “bloggers were poking holes in the equity of our brand.” He was referring to an episode where Starbucks found themselves nearly recoiling in response to UK bloggers who received national attention over pointing out continuous running water taps in their stores. Starbucks has since gone to a different system with no running water taps. That quote left me with the realization that Starbucks kind of views bloggers as people who might turn on them in any moment – and who knows, maybe that is true. ?
Though I wanted to say this in our twitter conversation, but there aren’t enough characters. I began to reconsider my own thinking about Starbucks and its relationship with bloggers when Adam Brotman personally reached out to me in October of this year. I think he was just trying to gain a little more exposure for the then newly-launched Starbucks digital network, and he saw the blog has a possible venue to reach a few more people. The blog article that came of that meeting with Adam is what I put at the link to my name in this comment. The sheer fact that he simply reached out to me, without me inspiring it at all, impressed the heck out of me. Perhaps enough time has elapsed since the water tap episode that Starbucks is beginning to see bloggers as friendly. ??
Anyway, thank you again for the interesting read, the great photo featuring my favorite brand, and thank you for enduring through this comment. I know that I get so enthusiastic about Starbucks at times that I come off a little spammy, and I’m working on that problem, and it is not my intent.
Take good care, Melody
Hey Melody! I honestly am not that familiar with how Starbucks relates to bloggers. Maybe our friend John Moore could chime in? I’ll have to send him this post 😉
But the reaction you detailed from Howard Schultz strikes me as someone that is worried about bloggers because he doesn’t understand them. Too many companies believe that bloggers are just waiting to rip them. In fact, most customers, especially evangelists for that company want to HELP the company via the feedback they leave. They aren’t trying to rip the company or hurt them, they are trying to help them. I’m wondering if the bloggers you mentioned from the UK that noted the running water taps were pointing it out because it was wasting water, or more because they thought it was costing Starbucks money? They might have seen it as an issue they wanted to raise to help Starbucks SAVE money?
I think Dell is the textbook example of a company that once turned its nose up at bloggers, but that now embraces them wholeheartedly. And they’ve seen the results from listening and engaging their blogging customers. I hope Starbucks can as well.
Mack and Melody … could SBUX do more to engage with bloggers? Yes. Why not then? From the perspective of being a former SBUX marketer from the mid-90s to early 2000s, I know the company to have a very top-down controlling company culture. The company chose not to go the franchising path for growth because of its controlling company culture. The company has a long history of using Public Relations (PR) more than Marketing to create awareness/appreciation. And as we know from reading the CLUETRAIN, PR really stands for “Private Relations.”
My point is the innate company culture of SBUX prevents its from being open and transparent.
Yes, the company is viewed as being a social media leader but look where the company chooses to engage with its community of customers … very selectively on Facebook, Twitter, and MyStarbucksIdea. In all three of these spots, SBUX exerts control, especially on MyStarbucksIdea, on when/if it respond to customers. Very rarely have I seen SBUX comment on a blog post of someone with praise or criticism for the company. The innate company culture at SBUX is one of control and that extends to social media spots.
SBUX is learning to let go because it has been forced to let go. People will probably say its because social media participation dictates companies become more open and engaging with customers that SBUX has learned to change. Perhaps another reason has to do with learning humility.
The recession hit SBUX hard. Thousands of layoffs. Hundreds of store closings. Stock price plummeted. Never before had SBUX failed in such a public and embarrassing way. The recession has taught SBUX a lot. Before, it operated with egotism to vendors and customer with the attitude of “You need us more than we need you.” Now, because of its recent failures, the company understands it needs customers more than customers need Starbucks. And because of that, perhaps it has learned to become more open and transparent with customers, the media, and Wall Street. Dig?
Awesome insights, John. That’s why I was hoping you could chime in here, cause I knew you’d have a better idea of the internal and cultural issues at play for Starbucks.
Do you see Starbucks making more of an effort this year to be more open and engaging with customers online? Do you think there are people working for Starbucks now that are pushing for that? Seems that they’d need those internal SM evangelists to help the company realize the potential.
Thanks John, hope we can both make it to Austin for SXSW, I’d love to talk to you more about this!
I don’t think the company is as open as it appears. The intensity of control is so fierce in some emails I’ve seen, and so far from transparent, that it feels like a machine. It’s extremely talented at selectively responding to praise on twitter, or inquiry, but John has hit the nail on the head. Top down control is fierce, and I have only seem very limited signs of them reaching out to customers/bloggers in a very genuine way.
Mack … SBUX is full of super-smart people with great passion and killer ideas to drive the business. These super-smart people know what’s going on online and lots of them are participating online, just not on behalf of the company. Not every company needs to or should go into the deep end of social media. The Starbucks business will always comes down to what happens inside the four walls of each store. Delivering great customer experiences in the physical world will always take precedence over delivering great customer experiences in the digital world. That said, I don’t think SBUX will drastically change its company culture to be more engaging online in 2011. According to recent financials, sales have rebounded at SBUX and the reason can’t be because of their social media activity. Other reasons are at play like more streamlined operations and behind-the-scenes profit squeezing.
Very interesting! So often we think of rockstars in disparaging ways. “Oh, he’s such a rockstar,” for example. Or you know, we think of people burning down hotel rooms and such. But you make a very good point. Musicians, maybe more than any group, have always listened and reacted to what their fans said.
Now, that doesn’t mean that the reaction was to do exactly what the fans wanted. Bob Dylan fans were stunned when he went electric. Well, he didn’t say, “Oh, sorry then.” That’s an important line to draw. As you learn to converse with customers, or fans, you need to also learn how to guide them in a way. You don’t want to give all of your power away.
Great thought!
The first graphic did it for me. Having all of these twitter, facebook or blog followers are great but do they translate into something like a customer, a FAN, a sale or an advocate. These are tools we use to connect with people. With out those connections and interactions, they are of no value. Printing this one up and hanging it on the wall. Fantastic article