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The promise of Social Media isn’t in leveraging your customers, it’s in better understanding them

Geno Church tapping into the mindset of far too many marketers at the FIRE Sessions

The company found Social Media and thought it was glorious to see, “I can use this tool to help them talk about me!”

I saw this update on Facebook from Toby: ‘BIG pr agency VIP “our job is no longer control in social media; job is to arm fans with talking points to spread wom thru their social graph.” Sigh Is the “social” of social media gone forever?’

When I saw this, I realized that this thought had been bubbling up with me for a while: Most companies aren’t trying to leverage how their customers use social media to better understand them, they are trying to leverage how their customers use social media to create a new promotional channel for the company.  I noticed during last Friday’s Blog World keynote with Ford’s CMO Jim Farley that he kept talking about how powerful social media was because it let Ford spread its message through its customers.  I heard similar stories in other sessions and from other companies.

Good companies/organizations of Planet Earth, please understand that the promise of social media isn’t that it will let customers tell your story, but it will help you to better understand their’s.

At the Live #Blogchat at the FIRE Sessions in September, John Moore made a fabulous point: “In a way, it can be so easy and yet so difficult to engage with customers using social media.  Easy meaning it’s a tool we all have at out disposal to use.  Big companies, small companies, they’re using the same tools.  This allows you to scale the conversation, but just because you can scale the conversation, doesn’t mean you should scale the conversation.  The theme we have here today is ‘Let’s Get Dirty’, meaning hands-on…Doing it dirty, getting dirty is going in and understanding the passion and motivations behind the individual that is tweeting, blogging, updating, whatever….The ‘Easy’ part is the blast, the difficult part is to get your hands dirty, getting hands-on, and getting to know people.  That takes time.  Social media, for many of us, makes us lazy….Social media is so easy, but yet so difficult.  We’re losing the personal touches of getting our hands dirty and taking the time to truly and individually connect on a personal level.”

John’s right.  The promise of Social Media for many companies is that it provides them with a new promotional channel to reach their customers.  Or better still, to connect with their customers and help them promote the brand.  There is a shift in the idea of embracing a brand’s advocates, but as I told Toby on Facebook, what brands need to understand is that their advocates don’t love them for their talking points.  There is some common thread that runs through the brand, that binds them.  Figuring out what those ties are and truly understanding your advocates takes digging and work.

The great promise of social media is that it can help brands better communicate with, and understand their customers.  With a higher level of understanding comes more effective and efficient communication, which leads to even more understanding between the brand and its customers.  At some point, both groups begin to trust the other a bit, and that’s when advocacy on behalf of the customers can come into play.  The end result is the brand can use social media to better understand its customers, to build trust and advocacy with them, and improve their marketing and communication efforts, making them more efficient and saving the brand money.  All while improving customer satisfaction, growing customer retention rates and lowering customer acquisition costs.

Or companies can go on thinking that the beauty of social media is that it allows them to use their customers to RT their press release.

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Lady Gaga gives fans chance to get sneak peek at the cover to Marry the Night

Last night I was involved in a fabulous #SocialChat on Twitter and at one point we were discussing how companies could learn how to better embrace their advocates by watching how rockstars engage with their fans.  We were discussing how brand advocates WANT to take ownership in their favorite brands, but so few brands actually reach out and give them that chance.

I mentioned how Lady Gaga and Harley Davidson both embrace and love their fans.  I took a second to check Gaga’s twitter page, and as luck would have it, I saw this tweet:

Love it.  This tweet is going in my next version of the Think Like a Rockstar deck.  Here’s why I love this tweet:

1 – Gaga gave her fans ownership.  She reached out to them and empowered them to have something positive happen, if they acted.

2 – She communicated WHAT they needed to do in order to see the cover early.  Gaga’s fans would want to see the cover to her new single before it’s released.  Gaga knows this, so instead of just giving it to them, she makes them earn it.  Robbin had a great post about this point, and how movements need to be structured so that those involved have some skin in the game.

3 – She communicates to her fans that what THEY want is ABOVE what her LABEL wants.  Love that.  She’s telling her fans that ‘If it comes down to me choosing between what my label wants, and what you want, then you win.’

And her fans came through, and got to see the cover:

What is your brand doing to embrace and reward its biggest fans?

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Sponsor the Love: Rethinking How Brands Can Connect With Their Fans

Last week I got to attend the 2011 FIRE Sessions hosted by Brains on Fire in Greenville.  I recapped the morning and afternoon sessions (Including a LIVE #Blogchat) over on the Brains on Fire blog.

The event itself was delightful and inspiring just like it was last year.  But for me, the highlight of my 3-day stay in Greenville came the morning after the FIRE Sessions, when I went visit the Brains of Fire headquarters.  There I had a chance to sit down and chat with Greg Cordell and John Moore.  Both conversations were absolutely fascinating, and today I wanted to share with you some of the smartitude that I heard from Greg.

We were discussing how companies can connect with their advocates, when our chat turned to the idea of sponsorships.  Greg said something that completely grabbed my attention:

“The greatest thing you can sponsor are the people that love you.”

Greg explained that the idea was to find what your customers love about your brand, and think about ways to sponsor events that tie into the qualities of your brand that attract your customers, or the way in which they use your product(s).  Here’s a couple of examples:

1 – If your customers love the elegance and simplicity of your product, create events and touchpoints that are elegant and simple.

2 – Figure out what your customers love about your brand and product, and create events that give them a reason to connect with each other and share that common love.  Greg explained that with Fiskars, they found that customers were using their scissors in their scrapbooking projects, and they also discovered that scrapbookers are very passionate about their projects.  So it was a natural to create events that bring scrapbookers together and let them connect over a common love: scrapbooking.

 

What’s important is to not only create an event that ties into the reasons why customers love your product and brand, but to also connect them to other people that share that love.  Greg clarified that companies should “sponsor the things that connect people to people, when you connect people to people through the things that they care more about.”  When you put people in contact with other people that share their same love and interests, it energizes and excites them.  And if your brand can facilitate that meeting and event, your customers will love your brand even more for doing so.

Isn’t that just so smart it makes your head hurt, in a good way?  When you relate this back to how Rockstars connect with their fans, this is really all a concert is.  It’s an event that brings fans together over a shared interest and lets them connect with each other.

What concert can you create for your brand’s fans?

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Think Like a Rockstar Review at #SMIATL

This weekend I was lucky enough to attend and present at the #SMIATL conference in Atlanta.  On Friday afternoon, we did a Live #Blogchat session which was fabulous.  We discussed how to integrate blogging into your over-arching social media strategy, and also how to improve your blogging efforts.  Around 60-70 people attended the sold-out event, and it was a wonderful experience.  Thanks again to everyone that came!

On Saturday I presented a new version of my Think Like a Rockstar presentation, which is embedded below.  I am so proud of the fact that the session was very popular with attendees, and the deck on SlideShare has been viewed over 30,000 times in the 1st 48 hours of being uploaded.  I wanted to walk you through the deck, but also how I created it and what’s contributed to it being so popular.

First, if you’ve spent any amount of time reading this blog, you know how passionate I am about helping companies better connect with their brand advocates.  As a result, this is by far my favorite session and presentation topic.  A big reason why I love the Think Like A Rockstar session is because it takes the idea of connecting with brand advocates/evangelists, and frames it in a way that sparks the ‘Ah-Ha!’ moments.  When you ask a company ‘Would you like to learn how to energize and mobilize your brand evangelists?’, you might get some blank stares.  But if you ask ‘Would you like to learn how your brand can have raving and passionate fans just like Rockstars do?’, then companies tend to get excited.

The deck’s central question is: Why do Rockstars have fans, and companies have customers?  If you think about it, most of us self-identify as being a ‘fan’ of any music artist when we download their music or buy their CDs.  But when we buy a company’s products, we tend to view ourselves as customers of that company.

Why?

As it turns out, it’s because that’s exactly who both groups target.  Companies want new customers.  In fact, acquiring new customers is the top marketing objective of companies.  The problem is, new customers have little to no brand loyalty toward that company.  Which also explains why it costs 6-7 times as much to acquire a new customer versus retaining an existing one.

But notice in the above well-drawn graph that companies and Rockstars focus on opposite ends of the customer spectrum.  Companies focus the majority of their efforts on acquiring new customers.  This is the group that’s by far the biggest in market size, but that also has little to no brand loyalty.

But notice that Rockstars focus on that tiny sliver at the end that represents Brand Advocates (which is a fancy business term for ‘Fan’).  Brand Advocates are by far the smallest group, but they also have by far the highest levels of brand loyalty.  And then there is this:

So Rockstars are focused on connecting with their fans, the smallest group, but this group has such his brand loyalty that it not only spends more than existing customers, they also refer business equal to almost HALF the money they spend.

Which means that companies are trying to acquire new customers, and spending 6-7 as much versus retaining existing customers.

While Rockstars focus on connecting with their fans, the group that is spending more than existing customers, and they are also referring business FROM those existing customers.

So if Rockstars can figure this out, why can’t most companies?

Now I wanted to talk a bit about what I did to help make this presentation as popular as it has been (which has been SO rewarding!).

First, as I’ve said, I am so passionate about this topic.  So in the weeks leading up to #SMIATL, I made sure that everyone attending knew I was presenting Think Like A Rockstar, and that it was going to be a ‘big deal’.  The main reason why I was saying that was because I was making a promise to the attendees as well as MYSELF.  I spent over 100 hours in prepping this particular deck and rehearsing my talk.  Because again, this is my passion project.

Second, I promoted the talk all last week here on MackCollier.com in FIVE posts.  But each post tied into an element of the talk, so I was previewing the session, instead of just blindly promoting it.

Third, I had some fun with the talk.  Since the theme is how Rockstars connect with fans, prior to the start of the talk, I played a bit of a Led Zeppelin concert from 1979.  Think about it, how often have you come into a session 15 mins early, and stared at the introductory slide for 15 mins till the talk started?  I just wanted to have some fun and give attendees something neat to look at as they were coming in.  And of course I tweeted out that I had a little surprise in store if they arrived early 😉

Fourth, my delivery was solid.  It wasn’t perfect, but I received many compliments on the session itself.  Again, I had 100+ hours of prep time invested, so it had better have been good.  The truth is, there’s not a lot of short-cuts here, it’s mostly about putting in the hours.

Fifth, I uploaded the file to SlideShare immediately prior to my talk starting, and scheduled HootSuite to tweet out a link right as my talk ended.  Now this I actually screwed up, as I got the time change wrong, and forgot HootSuite was still on Central time.  I scheduled it to tweet out at 1pm, when I thought I was telling it to go out at 11am, which was right as my talk ended.  Live and learn.

The deck is embedded below, I hope you find it valuable.

Think Like A Rockstar

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Think Like a Rockstar: Embrace Your Fans

All week I’ll be previewing my Think Like a Rockstar session at #SMIATL on Saturday. If you would like to attend #SMIATL use code SMISPEAK to register for only $128!

Unlike most companies that wish to keep their customers at arm’s length, most Rockstars look for ways to embrace their fans and connect with them.  A great example of this is what Blink 182 did recently with their montage music video for their new single Up All Night.  The band found over 100,000 instances of their fans using their music without permission in their videos, and they rewarded the fans.  They took the videos and mashed them up to create a music video for Up All Night.

The band was smart enough to understand that its fans weren’t ‘stealing’ from the band or trying to hurt them, they were in fact trying to promote the band and their love for Blink 182.  And to their credit, Blink 182 was smart enough to see this, and reward their fans by featuring them in their video.  All this does is make those fans more likely to promote the band to their friends!

The video is linked below, what are some ways that you could give your customers and advocates more of a say in your marketing efforts?  How could you put the spotlight on them?

http://youtu.be/eabtzkY_jNs

If you want to attend my Think Like a Rockstar session at #SMIATL, it’s Saturday morning at 10:15 AM!

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Think Like a Rockstar: Find the ‘Bigger Idea’

All week I’ll be previewing my Think Like a Rockstar session at #SMIATL on Saturday. If you would like to attend #SMIATL use code SMISPEAK to register for only $128!

In 2003, Sarah McLachlan was given $150,000 by her label, Arista, to create a music video for her new single, World on Fire.  However, instead of creating that music video, Sarah promptly took all of that $150,000 (save $15), and donated it to 11 charitable organizations. Through Sarah’s generous donations, the lives of over one million people around the world were bettered and improved.

However, this presented a problem in that while Sarah had just helped one million people, she had also given away all of her music video budget!  But she did still have $15 left, so she took those last few dollars and bought a video tape, then she got some friends to donate their time to create and produce a music video.  What Sarah did was create a very basic and simple music video that outlined the typical expenses for creating a music video.  For example, a Production Assistant might cost $200 a day, office phones cost $480 each, and the cost of hair and makeup would be $5,000 a day.

Sarah then detailed what that money was spent on instead of the normal expense.  The $200 that would have normally covered the cost of a Production Assistant for a day, was instead spent on providing 1 term’s worth of schooling for 100 children in Ethiopia.  The $480 that would have normally been spent on an office phone, instead equipped 10 schools in Afghanistan. That $5,000 for hair and makeup?  It was spent on providing a year’s worth of schooling for 145 girls in Afghanistan.

Sarah created an amazing video that detailed how all of us can contribute just a little bit of money, and still make a huge impact on people that are less fortunate than ourselves.  What made the video even more compelling was that Sarah not only showed us what the money was spent on, she also showed us the VERY PEOPLE that were helped.  For example, at one point in the video we are introduced to a woman in Ghana that works 16 hours a day, 7 days a week to raise the $200 that’s needed to send her son to school each year.  As part of Sarah’s $150,000 donation, this woman received a $1,000 grant that will cover her son’s schooling for the next 5 years, which also means that the mother won’t have to work as much, and can spend more time with her son.

When asked about why she structured the video the way she did, Sarah explained “I wanted a video that wasn’t about me and wasn’t preachy, but one that would help shine a light on the tragedy and turmoil in the world and also show the beauty and strength of the human spirit.”

And BTW, World on Fire also went on to be nominated for a Grammy Award.

If you are thinking about how to create compelling and engaging content via social media, you would do well to follow Sarah’s lead and focus on the ‘Bigger Idea’.  Don’t try to promote your products and services directly, think about how your customers use your products, and what they are trying to accomplish.  For example, if your company sells digital cameras, don’t create a blog devoted to your cameras, create a blog devoted to teaching your customers how to be better photographers.  If you are a Realtor, don’t simply blog about your properties, blog about the beauty of the area where your properties are located.  By focusing on the Bigger Idea behind your products, you’ll create content that’s far more valuable and engaging to your audience.

BTW here’s the amazing video for World on Fire:

Tomorrow, we’ll look at how Rockstars embrace their fans! If you want to attend my Think Like a Rockstar session at #SMIATL, it’s Saturday morning at 10:15 AM!

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Think Like a Rockstar: Rockstars Shift Control to Their Fans

All week I’ll be previewing my Think Like a Rockstar session at #SMIATL on Saturday. If you would like to attend #SMIATL use code SMISPEAK to register for only $128!

One of the clear distinctions between Rockstars and companies is how they both handle involving their fans and customers in the marketing process.  While most companies are scared to death of giving their customers any type of input into their promotional efforts, many Rockstars view their fans as marketing partners, and willingly embrace their efforts to help promote the artists that they love.

A good example of Rockstars embracing their fans is TheDonnasMedia.com.  This fan-run site collects and archives every live appearance made by the band, in whatever form is available.  Full-length concerts, television and radio appearances, even custom-made CD liners and notes.  If you are a fan of The Donnas, this is your Nirvana, with literally tens of thousands of hours of audio and video content stretching back more than a decade.

I contacted The Donnas’ management a few years ago when I first learned about this site, and asked them if they were aware of this site, and what they thought of it.  They absolutely loved it, and not only that, they fully-supported their fans’ efforts to make their music available, and even helped them in that endeavor.  Several times, the band has made mention of the site on its own website, asking fans that have recorded copies of recent concerts to contact the admins of TheDonnasMedia.com to give them access to it so they could add it to the site’s library.

The goal, as the band put it is to sell more music by giving it away. There is one big caveat with this site: You will find no content that has been commercially released by the band.  You can find a dozen or more live performances of the song ‘Fall Behind Me’, but you can’t find the version that was released commercially by the band.  Because the site self-polices itself and will only post music that the band isn’t selling.

But what I love about this is how The Donnas view the fans running TheDonnasMedia.com as PARTNERS that are helping the band reach new audiences.  They not only don’t feel threatened by the content that’s posted on the site, they actually help the site administrations get NEW material.  All because the band and its fans have a trusting relationship in place.

Tomorrow, we’ll look at how Rockstars focus on the Bigger Idea behind their music!  If you want to attend my Think Like a Rockstar session at #SMIATL, it’s Saturday morning at 10:15 AM!

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Think Like a Rockstar: Rockstars Are Fans Themselves

All week I’ll be previewing my Think Like a Rockstar session at #SMIATL on Saturday. If you would like to attend #SMIATL use code SMISPEAK to register for only $128!

I love this picture, is the audience raising their hands because Brett is, or is Brett raising her hand cause the audience is?

Rockstars are by default fans of themselves.  But this also means that they have the same mindset as their fans, and the same point of view.  As such, they are more connected to their fans, and better understand them.

Think about how a rockstar gets started: They play small local events, maybe only a dozen or 2 people show up.  Then, if they connect with their audiences, over time their fanbase will grow.  But throughout, the rockstar is connect to its fanbase and knows who they are.  They perform at clubs and bars, and then afterwards get to talk to them, share a beer with them, and learn who they are and what they like about their music.  They stay connected to their fans.

I saw an interview a few years ago with Willie Davidson, the CCO at Harley-Davidson.  CNBC asked him if HD did any type of market research to learn more about its customers and to better understand them.  Willie remarked “Oh we’re in constant contact with our customers…we ride with them all the time!’  That might sound like a smartass answer, but what Willie is saying is that he uses his products in the same way as his customers, and for the same reasons.  He knows about the ‘Harley lifestyle’ because he is living it.  As a result, he better understands Harley’s customers, because he’s talking to them every time he rides with them.

Is it any wonder that Harley-Davidson is considered a ‘rockstar’ brand?  The brand understands its customers and their point-of-view, and this is a big reason why the company has so many passionate brand advocates.

Tomorrow, we’ll look at how rockstars shift control to their fans!  If you want to attend my Think Like a Rockstar session at #SMIATL, it’s Saturday morning at 10:15 AM!

Pic via Flickr user tatu43

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Think Like a Rockstar is coming to Atlanta and #SMIATL this weekend!

I am beyond thrilled that I get to spend the weekend in Atlanta at #SMIATL!  The event will be very important for me because, besides seeing all my friends again, there will be a LIVE #Blogchat on Friday afternoon!  This will be the FIFTH Live #Blogchat so far this year, and is SOLD OUT!  I cannot wait to see everyone!

But I am even more excited about what happens on Saturday.  That’s when I get to give my favorite session of all, Think Like a Rockstar.  This session will answer two of the most important questions that online marketers have today:

1 – How do we build engagement around our Social Media efforts?

2 – How can we better connect with our customers and WHY should we?

One of the highlights for me in getting to attend South By Southwest Interactive in 2008 was getting to meet Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba.  The two literally wrote the book on Customer Evangelism, and are co-authors of the popular Church of the Customer blog.  When I met them, I told them both that what THEY were talking about, why companies should embrace and empower their most passionate customers, was the future of successful marketing.  NOT Social Media.  I believe that even more today than I did then.  Social Media are simply tools, but there is true business value in embracing and empowering your most passionate customers, and I’m going to make that case on Saturday morning at the Think Like a Rockstar session.

So all this week, I’ll be outlining some examples of how rockstars are connecting with their fans, and giving you ways to think about how you can apply these same methods to your company’s marketing efforts.  I’ll deep-dive into all of these areas on Saturday at #SMIATL, so if you’d like to attend, I have a special discount code you can use to get 20% off admission!  Just use code SMISPEAK when you register and you’ll get to attend #SMIATL for the insanely low price of $128 for the 2-day event.

BTW if you want to get a sense of what will be in this session, here’s last year’s deck, which currently has over 14,000 views on SlideShare.  I will add though that the deck I will be presenting at #SMIATL will be completely revamped and restructured with new case studies and format.  About 33% of the slides you see in this deck will make it to the one at #SMIATL, and even those will be used in a different context.

Think Like a Rockstar: How to Build Fans and Community Around Your Social Media Efforts

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What story does your content tell about you?

You can learn a lot about someone and how they use social media by the content they create.  Pick a blog, any blog, and look at the last 10 posts.  Is the content instructional?  Inspirational?  Self-promotional?  Educational?  All of the above?

The same thing applies to companies, and that will be the topic of the LIVE #Blogchat on Tuesday at Content Marketing World (Did I mention it’s at the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame?).  We’ll be talking about companies can tell their story via the content they create on their blog.

One company that I think does a fabulous job of telling its story via the content it creates on its blog is Patagonia:

With The Cleanest Line, Patagonia does a fabulous job of creating content that isn’t focused on the company and its products, but rather the ideals and beliefs that are core to it, and its customers.  It’s a wonderful example of focusing on The Bigger Idea.

From The Cleanest Line’s About Page:

Build the best product, do no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.
– Patagonia’s Mission Statement

The goal of The Cleanest Line is to further Patagonia’s mission by encouraging dialogue about the products we build, the sports we love and the environmental issues we’re concerned about. By talking openly about the products we build, Patagonia users can help us achieve ever greater standards of quality and functionality. By spreading the word about specific environmental issues, we can increase awareness and take action as quickly as possible. By sharing field reports, we can inspire one another to keep experiencing the natural wonders of our precious planet. And like any good conversation, there’s always the possibility for pranksters and poets to direct the conversation towards territories lacking any seriousness whatsoever.

Patagonia is clear to let the readers know that the content it creates will be focused on issues larger than simply its products.  In fact, most of the content is focused on environmental and wildlife stories and issues that are important to the company, and its customers.  And by taking this approach, I think it also makes the content being created far more interesting.

Look at your company blog; what story are you telling?  Which company blogs create posts that you actually ENJOY reading?