And Avoiding the "Trough of Disillusionment"  For those of us that work in and around the marketing and CRM arena, there is a certain déjà vu about the hype surrounding the topic of social media. Like many hyped topics before it, it appears to be just a matter of time before we descend into what our IT friends – Gartner – call the “trough of disillusionment”.

Gartner Hype Cycle

Don’t get me wrong. There is enormous potential for brands to engage with their more passionate customers in the world of social media. And social media itself reflects some fundamental shifts in the way customers interact with brands. But at the end of the day, it is just a (new, richer, interactive) channel. So what are the threats and opportunities of this developing channel? Well, it certainly seems that you ignore this channel at the peril of your brand. In our part of the world (Australia), recent Nielsen research tells us: “84% of internet users use social applications”. And where goes the customer, goes the money... Of course, it is not only that the internet and social networking are shifting eyeballs. Other forces are at work with today’s consumers. Consider the following:

• The saturation of marketing messages – refer your own experience!
• Fragmentation of media channels – refer your local ad agency exec
• Instant access to competitive information – refer examples: www.lasoo.com.au, www.tripadvisor.com, www.whirlpool.net.au
• Growing gaps in trust between customers and brands – refer to Jack Trout and his book ‘Differentiate or Die’.
• Gravitation to niche interests – “because we can” –the Long Tail phenomenon (refer www.thelongtail.com)
• Customer belligerence – refer your local “Do Not Call Register” and your ability to skip ads with set top boxes
• Ever shorter customer attention spans – refer your children

The point being, it is getting increasingly difficult to talk to today’s customers! Not that you need to be told this right?! The good news is that the new channel represented by social media brings new opportunities to work sympathetically with the new consumer (“consumer 2.0”) rather than being overwhelmed by the trends described. A central idea to this approach is marketing as a conversation – refer our video page on this blog site.  Hardly a new idea, but to marketers raised in an era of one-way broadcast mass media – this takes some getting use to. We are no longer shouting at our consumers – we are listening. Consideration not awareness – is the name of the game. Once you have this mindset, the trends cited above seem less overwhelming and the opportunities endless! Now, your opportunities come in the form of:

• Online customer communities
• User generated content
• The ability to add metrics (add quant to qual) through selection and ranking of content
• The influence of brand advocates
• Genuine exchange of ideas - mutually inspired innovation

And here’s the best bit, you can make a start now! In the world of social media, brands don’t have to be perfect. They need to be authentic but not sanitised perfection. Most of all they need to be able to listen and to respond appropriately. And with the advent of web 2.0 technologies, the cost of establishing a conversation with your customers online does not have to be expensive or leave you beholden to the IT department. One of the most promising social media developments for brands is the ability to develop your own branded customer community online. In future posts, we will explore why online customer communities are an idea whose time has come and more importantly - how they can be effectively developed – with some very fresh examples – warts’n’all – drawn from our clients and others... We are keen to avoid Gartner’s “trough of disillusionment” and move to the “slope of enlightenment” as quickly as possible!