Why Listening Should be your First Social Media Objective

 It is increasingly apparent that brands that have created relationships with influential bloggers have developed powerful and effective advocates, who have helped extend the influence of the brand's marketing activity, often way beyond that possible with more 'traditional' marketing activities.

This approach (sometimes referred to as 'Crowdsourcing') has been used to cut the development time and cost of bringing new products to market and, for those who consumers are involved, helps create even more brand loyalty.

Out there in blogs, forums and in all sorts of places consumers are expressing real frustrations and, hopefully, joys and ideas about brands.
Listening to these consumers online enables brands to tap into what they are saying about the brand: spontaneously and not mediated through a research process. They will hear exactly what they think and, if they use the right approach and technologies, be able to assess how many people are expressing this sentiment and how influential they are.

It is widely accepted that consumers will continue to use social media to actively take control away from brands; a trend that will only increase.
Listening to consumer sentiment about their and their competitors' brands allows companies to track discussions, understand sentiment, identify influencers and use the resulting insights to improve the effectiveness of marketing and customer service.

Ongoing listening to sentiment does not have to be an expensive exercise.
It compares favourably on cost with research methods, such as tracking studies, that brands may know well because they've worked with them for years, but these were never created for an age in which sentiment can change in a day, and you might know nothing about it.

Is a competitor on the horizon for the Post Office?

There has been much debate in the press regarding the impact of the strikes on the Post Office’s reputation but I wonder how much thought has been given to all the businesses that rely on the PO to deliver on their behalf? Amazon for example, have an exclusive distribution agreement with them and the continued postal delays are having an equally detrimental effect on many brands which rely on the Christmas trading period to buffer sales through the rest of the year. For some, sales during Oct-Dec make up 70% or more of their annual profit and it will be their brand reputation on the line as much as the PO’s.

Ironically, some brands are taking active steps to help reduce the impact on those who rely on the postal service like Ebay, which has temporary altered its feedback mechanism so that you can no longer rate sellers on the speed of delivery. But let’s face it, many businesses are struggling to survive the downturn and initiating strikes which could potentially put more out of business is likely to damage the PO’s reputation, perhaps permanently.

What is clear is that the longer it goes on, the worse the impact will be on the PO’s brand reputation, but to be fair this means little as what alternative do we have for consumer mail? All of this would be far worse for the Post Office if they had a direct competitor so maybe it is time to open up the market a little.

Richard Branson might be interested?

Building Brand Advocacy – too late for Christmas?

Retailers across the country will be now be fully prepared for Christmas trading and many will be working towards 2010. Targets based on last year’s performance will vary. The economy is showing (albeit slow) signs of improvement and initial predictions for the Christmas trading are better than would have been expected 12 months ago. We often advise the brands we work with to evaluate just how successful they have been at building brand advocacy through the year before their busiest and most profitable time of the year.

One of the problems facing retail is that there are multiple influences – not only the economy and the continue increase in Tesco’s market share, but also technology and consumer expectations of brands to engage with them on specific issues and to conduct their business in an ethical, responsible and sustainable way.

Traditional marketing is dead. Advertising media has fragments and PR is much less impactful than in the past. Consumers see more communication messages each day than they have ever before and are increasingly cynical. Technology means that every consumer is now an opinion former. Successful brands have to focus on their reputation to increase their brand value and improve commercial performance.

So is it too late for some brands to build advocacy in time for Christmas?

Yes – it takes time to build advocacy and whilst even in the current economic climate, price, whilst still a key consideration, is not viewed by customers as the most important aspect of the whole customer experience. Brands need to focus on delivering the best possible customer experience. If this is done successfully then retailers can expect higher levels of advocacy for Christmas trading 2010. We have just released its whitepaper ‘building brand advocacy in retail’. If you’d like to read more about this subject you can request a complimentary copy by contacting enq@brandrep.co.uk