The tribe or the person?

A parade of tourists is going to walk past your store today. Each is a separate opportunity for you to tell a story, to engage, to make a sale.

A connected community of readers is going to read what you wrote today. A cultural shift will occur among a small group of people because they will share, discuss and engage with each other about what you wrote.

Here’s the key question: are you trying to change an individual or are you trying to incite/inspire/redirect the tribe?

Direct marketers traditionally deal with separate events. Each catalog, each clickable ad is a unique transaction. In the world of separates, the simple test makes sense. You don’t pollute the pool when you try different transactions or different products with different people.

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Evolving stories FROM Demographics TO Social Communities

THEME #3 FROM 7 PART POST SERIES EXPLORING THE EVOLUTION OF BRAND STORIES & THEMES

 

Understand_by_highersights

Great brand stories, not unlike human stories, can inspire vibrant conversation, sustained interest and engagement – especially within social communities.  But only to the degree to which there is meaningful and mutual interest.  Think about the ways we come to understand a person?  Our innate social instincts strive to find common points of connection, understand context, and interpret their behavior.  In other words, we synthesize what we learn and observe in order to better understand and connect.  Contrast this approach to what happens in business when a brand attempts to connect with people.  Ironically, the default response is to break down through analysis.   Strip down into simplistic demographic terms, and segment in order to shape what is known.  This process of re-interpretation is meant to simplify information – but in the long run it produces a distant and simplistic understanding of the customer.  The difference of generalizing insight/information vs. pursuing meaningful customer “intelligence,” is not only a difference in philosophy and methodology.  More importantly it is proving to be a significant business disadvantage.

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” – Einstein

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Has Black Friday Lost Some Of Its Retail Magic?

Ok raise your hand if you knew the term “Black Friday” was first coined in the City of Brotherly Love, my hometown, Philadelphia. It’s ok if you didn’t know that. I was born and raised here and I didn’t even know it.

Black Friday (1940 film)

According to Time Magazine, “The term Black Friday itself was originally used to describe something else entirely — the Sept. 24, 1864, stock-market panic set off by plunging gold prices. Newspapers in Philadelphia re-appropriated the phrase in the late 1960s, using it to describe the rush of crowds at stores.”

As Johnny Carson would say, ‘I did not know that.’

What I do know, however, is the cultural, societal and retail phenomenon Black Friday has become. It has become symbolic for marketers and advertisers across the land as it signals the start of what they hope will be a very fruitful and beneficial holiday shopping season.

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4 Social Media Platforms to Empower Your Employees

 

Who knows your business as well (if not better) than you do? The people who work in your business, of course! And I’m not talking about a sales staff. I’m talking about your nuts-and-bolts employees who know the everyday ins and outs, whether they work with your customers, handle inventory or do the behind-the-scenes work that helps run your company. In today’s socially-connected world, employees are often an untapped resource that (with a little guidance) could exponentially expand your company’s word-of-mouth reach. Empower them so they can power your business.

Your employees can use these four social platforms to help spread the word about your company:

1. LinkedIn

 Especially if your company is B2B, have a company profile on LinkedIn, and encourage all employees to have personal profiles that link them to your company. Each person has talents and skills they contribute to your business that could be highlighted with your company’s keywords in each employee’s summary and experience areas. LinkedIn Recommendations can also increase your company’s visibility in the channel.

Ask employees to join groups where they can share their insights and answer questions.

2. Facebook

 If you have a business page on Facebook, have employees link to it in the “About” section of their profiles. Also, set up a private group where your employees can collaborate. Seek out groups that fit your company niche and encourage employees to join; not to SPAM others with your messaging, but to find ways to contribute, answer questions, share expertise, etc.

3. Twitter

 Twitter is a great place to provide an extra level of customer service that goes beyond your own company brand on Twitter. People-to-people interaction gives your brand a more human touch. Each person can actively “listen” for company mentions, questions and conversation around keywords and jump into the conversation where appropriate—even if it’s just to thank someone for mentioning or Retweeting your brand. Encourage employees to share Tweets around your company’s activities and content. Come up with a company hashtag or a series of hashtags (e.g. #companyname, #companyevent) and pre-craft Tweets to make it easy. They can just cut and paste to share on their Twitter feed.

4. Instagram

 Even if you don’t have a photogenic product, your employees with smartphones can still spread positive messaging about your company with Instagram. From photos of the lunchroom, to customer gatherings to company events, there are many ways your employees can pull in prospects with images.

Hashtags can now be used and tracked on all four of these platforms.

A little encouragement goes a long way!

Set some formal guidelines, keeping in mind that if you clamp down too hard, employees may back away from participating. Offer in-house social training, led by your best in-house and local experts. Provide incentive programs to reward the employees who provide the most relevant ideas and responses.

Remember that your employees are your company’s best resource—make the most of their passion and individuality. They’re already social, so start thinking of how you can empower your employees to have their own voice, and you will discover many can and will become your company’s most active and valuable social advocates.

Originally published October 2, 2013 at salesforce Blog

My Recent Abomni-Channel Retail Experiences

OMNICHANNELThe entire retail channel is ablaze these days with talk of Omni-channel retail. Who’s doing it right, what are the best logistics strategies to support and the like.

Well those of you who know me will agree that for a retail guy I’m really not that much of a shopper. And funnily enough on two recent store visits to different retailers in the Greater Toronto Area I experienced not one but two abomni-channel retail trainwrecks.

Recently I went to a store in Newmarket around 4 pm to get two products with my son. He had seen the products on the retailer’s website and site did not say it was only available online so we went to store to pick one up.

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Brand Adoption Of Instagram Up 80% In One Year

A few weeks ago Jeff Bercovici of Forbes wrote a piece entitled Instagram Launches Ads, Promises, ‘We’ll Start Slow’ in which he told all us Instagram users that “the honeymoon’s over” and that the “long-promised introduction of advertising to the photo-based social network is upon us.”

The Instagram logo is displayed next to a smar...

In his piece Jeff made reference to a post from the official Instagram blog which says they (Instagram) will “focus on delivering a small number of beautiful, high-quality photos and videos from a handful of brands that are already great members of the Instagram community.”

Well based on the results of the recently released Instagram brand adoption study from Simply Measured,

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Social Media Radio with @BeverlyMacy interviews Ted Rubin

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/beverlymacy/2013/10/29/the-worlds-most-followed-cmo–ted-rubin

The World’s Most Followed CMO – Ted Rubin

FEATURED
Tuesday 10/29 3:00 pm 

Ted is the most followed CMO on Twitter according to Social Media Marketing Magazine; one of the most interesting CMOs on Twitter according to Say Media, #13 on Forbes Top 50 Social Media Power Influencers, 2013, and number #2 on the Leadtail August 2013 list of Top 25 People Most Mentioned by digital marketers.

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Why Relationships & Advocacy Are Keys to Social Success (Webinar via @EngageSciences)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNsNdk1yOsE

 

October 23, 2013 by engagesciences

On Tuesday October 22 Richard Jones, the CEO of EngageSciences was joined by Ted Rubin, globally recognised as the most followed CMO on Twitter for a live webinar on “Why Relationships and Advocacy Are The Keys to Social Success”.

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Understanding Luxury Goods

A luxury good gets its value from its lack of utility and value. A typical consumer would look at what it costs and what it does and say, “that’s ridiculous.”

When a good like this (and it might be a service as well) comes to market, it sometimes transcends the value equation and enters a new realm, one of scarcity and social proof. The value, ironically, comes from its lack of value.

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