Sheila Tolle – VP of Marketing – Intuit Small Business Group, spoke on the topic of Combining eCommerce and Community: It’s a new normal and there is no going back. at the Internet Strategy Forum West 09
The new normal – power shifts from company to individual.
Edelman – Trust barometer – 2nd least trusted, CEO’s of companies, 1st least trusted, Journalists. You have to find new ways to communicate with your customers. You have to engage with them in a compelling and interactive way.
The trend:
85% of all us online consumers will be reading or viewing social content by the end of 2009 - This is an opportunity to communicate with customers BUT remember....
You are not in control of your brand. You never have been. People were always talking before, now you know what they are actually saying.
You can leverage the online community to get the information regarding your ad campaign or product design. It could save you $$$.
Leverage twitter to engage with customers. You can interact as an idividuals representing a company. Enable to realize that the company is a collection of individuals and interact on a person to person basis instead of in a monolithic way.
They creates a Live Community in Quickbooks. Customers can ask questions when they had a problem and get help from peers in addition to the moderated customer support. The results were that 75% of the questions were being answered by other customers and satisfaction with product support increased.
If you only do one thing – Listen.
Intuits online conversation cloud – one way of looking at what’s being said about intuit. (use radian 6)
Listening on a budget
Listening in twitter – http://search.twitter.com
Blogs: http://www.technorati.
Forums boardtrackter.com
Listening byond just your brand name
Try a google search using
[brandname here] + sucks
[brandname here] + fail
[brandname here] + love
Know what people are saying about your company. You will have info to provide you understanding of how your brand is being perceived.
Five take a way points
Turn the bullhorn around let customers talk to you
Become a part of the community you serve.
Find /live your higher purpose. Think about why you exist. Be that. Help business succeed. Embrace your higher purpose. Not selling more.
Create amazing experiences.
Embrace the chaos. You can’t control it.