OVERHEARD IN THE CAFÉ (BE USEFUL)

Image: Jencu

The other day sitting in my local coffee shop I over heard a conversation between a gentleman who was starting up an organic baby food business and his friend/adviser. Together they were trying to formulate a strategy, or more specifically, a social media strategy (that, according to the stats, is increasing desirable). During the conversation the entrepreneur said two things that really stood out to me.

1. “Why would anyone search for baby food on youtube”
2. “It frustrates me when we spend so much on demographics and all the media agency do with the information is divvy up our budget between the standard publications and points of sale” [that we already knew of anyway, so what was the use of the all that money spent on market research]

Traditionally, and it’s still a good rule of thumb, a reputation of quality and personal referral have always been the effective methods of brand growth.  But when many companies want to spread their brand reach wider they simply try to scale this up. “If we tell people we have a quality product (advertising) they’ll see that and consider trying our brand”. This is less effective.

But the common mistake is to simply extend this misnomer into the socially based web 2.0 space. Often thinking; Okay, so we’ll just say who we are using pixels, people will join up if we can push them there. But that still leads them wondering “why would anyone search for baby food on youtube” and this is a good question… and speaking to some new parents I’ve found that’s exactly the kind of thing they’re going to type in; but that doesn’t mean if they find your product they become loyal to it.

Brands need to think beyond simply what their product is. For example, it’s so crucial to understand what your customers needs are (that should have been a major insight to come out of your market research, if it wasn’t then find a new market research company).

How can you be useful for you consumers. If you’re an organic baby food then let’s think about:

• New mothers and fathers need advice (and older parents have it to give)
• New Feeding time and schedules
• What does being a parent mean they’ll miss out on (going out, socializing, theater, cinema)
• The trouble finding a baby sitter
• A need to break out and be themselves from time to time (as now they have to be responsible)
• The stress associated with this new responsibility.

… hopefully you get the picture – this is just what I was thinking as I sat there listening to their misguided conversation – so imagine how many ideas would come out of actively listening to your consumers in the market research. Always question and listen for insight to enable innovation and actionable ways of fulfilling your customer’s needs on a wider field than the direct use of your product… because that’s what will help draw them to your brand and build loyalty.

And that’s a main key of social media. No longer is simply about pushing a consumer to your site (through traditional media and advertising) it’s about pulling them with useful content. In web 2.0 Content is King. Content that is useful, shareable and users are able to express themselves with. Then you are en route to being effective.

This is only the beginning; here’s a really nice post over at SocialTNT who are very informative on this subject. And over at Social Media Monitoring that’s a great overview of the social media funnel and some tools to facilitate it.

These can be rather treacherous waters if you don’t know who your brand is and who it’s talking to. I recommend you find a guide to help you stick to a mapped path that is dynamic enough to tweak and shift as the conditions do. They’ll help you discover an already existing and suitable channel your brand can become involved in (no use re-inventing the wheel if it already lives somewhere organically) or show you how to build your own channels (both small and large scale to suit your budget).