Social Media Blog: Conversational MarketingA blog that disects conversational marketing via social media.

Remember G.I. Joe and those pretty awesome public service announcements, where one of the Joes would give an important safety lesson to a group of kids engaged in questionable behavior? They always ended with the famous exchange: “Now we know!” “And knowing is half the battle.” Well I say that “listening is half the battle” but I am willing to compromise. How about:

“Knowing when to listen is half the battle”

However you arrange the words, it makes complete sense when you apply it to social media. Listening and responding are only half the battle when engaging with consumers online. The other half of the formula is acting. It’s like being in a relationship. If my wife is upset that I leave my dirty socks on the living room floor every night; and I listen to what she is saying but continue to leave my socks there … well, you catch my drift. There will be hell to pay if I don’t “act” on her politely spoken “recommendations”. ; )

Case Study

Here is a real life case study when I launched my first community back in 2004 that illustrates this point effectively. A few jobs ago, I worked as an Interactive Marketing Manager for 8×8. They are a consumer and small business VoIP provider branded Packet8. At that time, the company was growing pretty strong with close to 100K subscribers. The CEO Bryan Martin expressed concern to me that he wanted to launch a blog. I thought this was a perfect opportunity to create a community for our subscribers at the same time. We had three objectives for this community:

1. To provide an infrastructure for our CEO to speak to our users and the media
2. Allow the community members (subscribers) to leverage the communities’ collective knowledge and help each other troubleshoot minor issues. (note: the call center was also based in Santa Clara; and the cost per call was astronomical)
3. Listen and engage with our subscribers, personally. Each 8×8 employee had a profile at that time.

After a few months, the community began to blossom and the conversations began. At first, the conversations revolved around the stock price and how low it was; but then, the community members began to ask simple troubleshooting questions to each other and others responded. I left the company before I was able to quantify whether the call volume decreased in the call center. Nonetheless, there was a ton of chatter about product related requests and recommendations. Most subscribers expressed deep concerns about having an additional RJ11 connection on their BPA (Broadband Phone Adapter) – the device that allowed them to make calls over the internet — in case they wanted to add a second line and/or wanted to connect a fax machine. Not only did we listen, but the Director of Product Marketing added that feature set into the product road map for the next release of the adapter. It was a huge success because we listened and acted. And, while subscriber growth expanded, subscriber turnover decreased.

There are also some other great examples of more well-known brands that are using conversations to innovate on future products and designs. I often talk about Dell IdeaStorm; where they ask users to “post a new idea, promote interesting ideas, discuss with Dell and other users, and see what they are planning to develop.” The keyword here is Dell. They are actually participating in the discussions.

Starbucks is following the same model “share, vote, discuss and see” and inspire their community with the following message:

Help shape the future of Starbucks—with your ideas
You know better than anyone else what you want from Starbucks. So tell us. What’s your Starbucks Idea? Revolutionary or simple—we want to hear it. Share your ideas, tell us what you think of other people’s ideas and join the discussion. We’re here, and we’re ready to make ideas happen. Let’s get started.

And, lastly Lego (yes the toys we all played with as kids) did something interesting a few years ago. The company called up a bunch of Lego geeks and asked if they wanted to help with the development of a new product. The end result was Lego Mindstorm; a very cool line of Legos combining programmable bricks with electrical motors, sensors, Lego bricks, and Lego Technic pieces (such as gears and axles). They have also built a pretty awesome community as well.

It’s great to see that companies are beginning to build communities and interact with their users/consumers. What’s even better is that they are now using this feedback to help influence future product designs, service offerings and value props.

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Tags: social media, conversational marketing