Enter the F-words. Founders, Friends, Fans and Followers all engaging in Social Media. Finding and discovering Information, Forming groups, offering Feedback, Fine tuning products and Favouring and recommending products and services to peers. So much going on it is all to easy to do nothing and let it pass you by in the hope it may all just go away. Make no mistake though, Social Media is here to stay. Facebook is now a layer to most of our lives. In terms of timing best to act as soon as possible. Interestingly Facebook has over 500 million active profiles using 700 billion minutes of time over the course of a month. Even more interesting, over three quarters of people (yes upwards of 375 million!) have liked a brand. Is one of them yours?
I have previously discussed too how we live in an age of desire as opposed to necessity. Consumers have a never ending obsession to buy, own and experience the best of the best globally. Their ongoing quest for stimulating excitement, interaction and connection, belonging and defending a community that they believe in, and their attempt to reach consumer bliss fuels the finding and discovery of information and things. ‘Keeping up with the Joneses’ has hit an all time high, through Social Media consumers are super interested in what their friends and contacts think, do, eat, read, listen to, drive, where they travel and most of all what they buy! After all don’t we all just want to belong? Consumer ‘types’ tend to cluster together and our friends will more than likely be similar to how we think, act and buy.
Are we all missing the consumer power of this trend? Surely it is more important to be rave-worthy now than EVER before. And it comes as no surprise that consumers are embracing these communities, mobile applications and widgets that not only allow us to express ourselves and experiences on a day to day (even minute to minute) level, but these advances also let us get to the crux of our friends essence of consumer being.
As consumers move forward with finding and discovering what they want, technology now enables us to serve up personalised offerings that we know they want. Social Media has in effect created access to highly qualified customers. We can get a glimpse of a person and now pitch and tempt them in a way that speaks accurately, personally and therefore powerfully to their consumer desires. And because it it perfectly matched to them it lands so much better, resonating and having maximum effect.
This leads us to feedback. If we as a business have lived up to and surpassed the consumers expectations offered by our personalised pitch, then they now have the chance to offer feedback... but the important fact is that the feedback is specific and chances are more positive and valuable as your offering has been customised to them. “But does this really matter?” To some it does and to others it may not (rare) but to a few, ‘feedback’ is the lifeblood and equity of their empire. Take tripAdvisor.com, this is closing in on being a billion dollar entity and primarily it’s consumer reviews of hotels, tours and travel products that massively affects sales. So are we right in breaking this down to their product being a portal for feedback of other products? Too right! and by the power of numbers, these actual user experiences are vital. It is a layer of transparency that establishes and reinforces trust. And we all know trust and authenticity are big magnets when attracting business.
This power in numbers can also be directed straight into consumer transactions as proven by the fastest growing company in the world right now, Groupon. Groupon has defined the industry of consortium buying. Consumers banding together and forming large groups that can leverage a cracking deal. Recently it was released that 83% of consumers state that they tell their friends if they get a good deal. (Source: JWT Intelligence, December 2010) The downside to this Group Buying is that consumers have no idea who is in the group, buying with them. It is purely price driven. Although users may share this deal with their social contacts the duplicated reach is still heavily price motivated. For this reason consortium buying lacks what trendwatching.com refers to as the F-Factor.
The guts of the F-Factor is in the Social Spread of consumer trends that then trigger more sales and consumer activity. It is in getting your brand experience to it’s optimum on all levels so that consumers interact positively with each other over your brand. The viral spiral can either work for you or against you, so do things right and make it work for you.
The opportunities that exist as a result of these ‘F words’ are endless. Even in creating ways and means for consumers to interact better and more easily, there is huge room for some big F-trepreneurs to make their mark. In the meantime all of you with a business, it is time to think about how you can be the most rave-worthy you can be!
The time is now. Hey why don’t you even share this article and place some feedback?
0 comments:
Post a Comment