Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell wrote this influential about the rising power of consumer voice in today's internet age (expecially the social media aspect) and what companies can do about it.
Highlights:
Chapter 1: Filters, Fanatics, Facilitators, and Firecrackers
People who create content on behalf of products, brands, companies or other people can be classified into four different categories: Filters, Fanatics, Facilitators and Firecrackers. The 4 F's.
Chapter 2: The 1 Percenters
Citizen marketers don't do what most people do. They live and work on the edges of mass culture. As the creators of content, they are also the shapers of culture... from its edges.
Chapter 3: The Democratization of Everything
As we shape our tools, our tools shape us, Marshall McLuhan once wrote. People blog, podcast and create online community forums because it's easy.
Chapter 4: Everyone is a Publisher; Everyone is a Broadcaster
The seismic earthquakes rocking the economic foundations of traditional media are caused by the clannish nature of social media networks. With the Internet as their worldwide distribution platform, citizen marketers are building audiences that rival local newspapers and cable television shows.
Chapter 5: Hobbies and Altruism
Why, exactly, would someone spend months, if not years, dedicating himself to creating content and building community around a commercial product, brand, company or person as a volunteer? Because his work is a hobby, and hobbies are fun. But deeper than that, hobbies grant participants the permission to consider their work as recreation while it subconsciously works as ideological re-creation. Their hobby replicates the skills of the workplace and adds value that may be lacking from it.
Chapter 6: The Power of One
Why does the work of some citizen marketers spread more than others? We examine how citizen-create memes catch fire and explode into mainstream media. We delve into how influential citizen marketers are driving sales for the objects of their affection.
Chapter 7: How to Democratize Your Business
The foundations of social media share many similarities to the foundations of democracy: Freedom of speech and self-expression, the right to assemble, the right to vote. Some businesses that create a democratized culture, where the community has a say in outcomes, find that a culture of community participation drives word of mouth and a strong sense of loyalty.
How should organizations respond to the rise of amateur culture?
One solution might be to add a fifth "P" to the famous 4 "p's" of marketing: Participation.
There are three different ways to respond to amateur grassroots efforts:
1. Say nothing and let the citizen marketers have their time in the spotlight. It’s a safe and conservative approach.
2. Use your company website or blog to point to the citizen marketers in the spirit of “what people are saying about us.” This opens the door to ceding control, and that’s a good step. Just remember that citizen marketers don’t follow instructions. This approach requires company spokespeople to have a sense of humor. That wasn’t the case with the Coke, whose spokesperson was quoted in the Wall Street Journal as scolding people for not drinking their precious beverage!
3. Quickly build a program around what’s happening. It can be beneficial but also tricky because it can taint the grassroots nature of what’s happening. Keep it simple. The “firecracker” nature of something like Diet Coke and Mentos has a short half-life. Better to openly solicit ideas from the people or community involved and keep it simple. Follow the lead of the community. And keep the company lawyers locked in a cage.
How ideas spread nowadays:
Word of mouth is most efficient when it’s designed it into the product, service or brand at inception, not just at launch.
Ideas grow in value the more they spread.
The 9 Golden Rules of Customer Plus-Delta:
1. Believe that customers possess good ideas. How often does someone in your organization respond to an innovative idea by saying, "Our customers don't want that." But you already have had customers indicate otherwise. The naysayer is operating from a level of otherworldly omniscience and is in the wrong the field of work. Other killjoys will argue that customers are incapable of knowing what really makes a product or service valuable, and therefore customer input is unnecessary. Asking customers to participate in your problem-solving and idea generation is an act of courage, not of weakness.
2. Gather customer feedback at every opportunity. Every customer interaction is an opportunity for feedback. Avoid the trap of "we don't want to bother our customers." If are customers are busy, they will politely decline.
3. Focus on continual improvement. Use your highly affiliated, most passionate customers to help you improve an aspect of your business every week so that it builds monthly momentum. Word will spread quickly when a company's quality starts improving, especially if you thank specific customers for their assistance.
4. Actively solicit good and bad feedback. The first part is relatively easy. The second question is usually the source of feedback fear. Finesse the situation by asking "what is the one thing you would change or improve about your experience with us or our product?"
5. Don't spend vast sums of money doing it. Multiple-page customer surveys that take six months and cost the equivalent of two salaries may impress the CEO and board of directors, but they may be outdated by the time the data arrives. Short, fast surveys deliver better response rates and allow you to react rapidly to issues raised. Solve one or two problems at a time, not everything at once. Tell your customers how their feedback directly contributed to your changes.
6. Go real-time. Kimpton Boutique hotels CEO Tom LaTour says he has three duties every day: 1) Review revenue targets; 2) Manage people 3) Call 8-10 customers.
7. Make feedback easy.
8. Share feedback freely.
9. Make changes quickly.
[From the Great Books Series. Also see The Success Manual - Encyclopedia of Advice, which contains summaries of 100+ Most useful books.]
