Archive for the ‘Social Media’ tag
Let’s Meet At The Tree
In Africa, the image of a group of (usually men) sitting under a tree talking is fairly common. In fact, many villages had a ‘the tree’ where people met to have informal meetings or just impromptu ones. If you were new in the village, you made stopping by the tree one of your priorities (unless there was an invitation only meeting happening). When formal [read Western] education was introduced, it also happened under a tree. At least until the classrooms were put up. Read the rest of this entry »
TweetIs your brand ‘socially’ relevant?
Is your brand relevant?
If you’ve been in business a while, it probably is. Otherwise you’d have folded long ago. Now your brand wants to be ‘social’ and blog, tweet and get a Facebook page or YouTube channel. This is now publishing territory. Are you publishing relevant content? Is it all about your product and your brand/business? If you consider the fact that building significant loyal traffic to a blog can take 2 years, is there enough talk about yourself to keep me reading your blog for two whole years?! Read the rest of this entry »
TweetSimple Is The New Black
Clay Shirky in his latest post ‘The Collapse of Complex Business Models’ makes a statement I find very important for businesses seeking to keep their audience engaged on the web.
“When ecosystems change and inflexible institutions collapse, their members disperse, abandoning old beliefs, trying new things, making their living in different ways than they used to.” He describes these ecosystems as complex systems where the system’s principals assume that complexity is an automatic advantage. It’s a post that’s got me considering how I go about doing business. Read the rest of this entry »
TweetNestle’s Facebook-YouTube-Greenpeace Fiasco – The Lesson for Business
‘…and we can get you on Facebook because social media is big right now!’
That’s some scary advise. But many organisations hear it all the time from their agencies when talking about marketing or website design. No strategy, no governance, just multiple channels where the staff can put out great information about the company and its products. Yippee!
Balderdash! I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what happened at Nestlé, although I choose to believe they went about it a bit more deliberately (being a multi-national and all). The signs are there to show they have issues with their web governance structures. When their Facebook admin took on some fans in what became a very public and embarrassing spat, a very distressing sign became evident.
TweetTiger & Terry – The Lesson for Business
originally posted at muchiri.com
Is it the market’s business what you do after hours? Is it the customer’s business where you sourced your raw materials, whether the CEO is faithful to his wife or even the CMO’s stand on healthcare reform? Shouldn’t all that matters be the product or service the brand promotes consistently at the perfect price, place & packaging?
Divorce rates in the UK currently stand at about 11.5% per 1,000 married couples. In the US, the rate is at 3.5%. When you consider that marriage rates in the US are at about 7.1% per 1,000 this means half as many people are getting divorced as are getting married. Obviously the idea of failed marriages is not a foreign one. And then there’s the permissive nature of today’s urban society. So why the outrage at Tiger Woods and John Terry for infidelity? They are not even in the marriage business! They are sports personalities!
Apparently, the consumer’s business extends to what famous people do when they are not doing what they are famous for. On this side of the new normal customers aren’t choosing which brands to be loyal to solely based on the price or quality, it’s now about the other things the brand does when it’s not ‘at work’. It’s about all the other peripheral things that have nothing to do with how the product is produced.
What do you tweet about when you’re not tweeting about your product/service? What was your last ‘unrelated’ Facebook post? What have you done for your customers lately that had nothing (or little) to do with you?
Lesson for business? There’s no clocking out. You’re at work 24/7/365. You’re not helpful only when customer’s need more information about your product or following up on a proposal you sent. It’s now all about the customer and what they think is important. If your tweets, status updates, videos and photos are all about you then you’re just a self-obsessed brand people have little time for. Find out what your customers are passionate about and become passionate about them. Be helpful on the customer’s terms.
It’s how I think it is. What do you think?
