In The Age of Conversation -

1 Age of Conversation Book Bloomberg Marketing/Diva Marketing

eMail Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest DivaMarketing |AllTheSingleGirlfriends

Technology Is Recreating Business Intimacies

Reprinted From the Age of Conversation 1 By Toby Bloomberg – Diva Marketing

Customers from India, Canada, New Zealand and Europe.

Technology swings open the doors to a global marketplace. Our cyberspace offices and storefronts keep the lights on 24/7/365 allowing us to conduct business with a mere click and an internet connection. Life is good. Or is it? In their rush to enter this new environment companies often sacrificed personal connections with their customers and other stakeholders. Understanding the individual needs of a growing and often geographically dispersed customer based is not an easy or inexpensive undertaking. Attempting to service and engage customers, some organizations turned to non traditional solutions including: out sourced online service “chat reps” who often had limited understanding of the business’s culture; interactive websites that flashed messages that were pretty but of little value; and email tactics where questions were gobbled up by cyberspace gremlins who of course never responded back. Misunderstanding and brand devaluation were frequently outcomes of non relationship service. Customers wanted high touch along with convenience of immediate access to information. Even businesses with only a local focus were being challenged with how to stay connected to their clients. About this time a strange dichotomy began to occur in the world of virtual business. The technology, that fostered impersonalization, was being used to create “corner grocery store relationships.” Through funny little websites called blogs companies began to engage with their customers in people-to-people conversations. Those conversations occurred not with the marketing, PR, tech support “departments” but with people within those departments who shared common interests and passions. The exchange was richer, deeper and more satisfying relationships for both customer and company.

http://www.ageofconversation.com/buy-now/

mailto:[email protected]

http://twitter.com/tobydiva

http://www.linkedin.com/tobybloomberg

http://pinterest.com/tobydiva

http://www.divamarketingblog.com/

http://www.allthesinglegirlfriends.com/




When we get to know people more than product information is usually exchanged. That’s exactly what happened online. Stories about personal interest from wine to family vacation were “blogged.” Photos were shared. Relationships that were as intimate and important as those created by neighborhood green grocers were being formed. Through social media marketing initiatives: blogs, podcasts, vlogs, mash-up communities, social book marking and photo sharing organizations were rediscovering that the corner grocery store relation was attainable in an online environment and more important than ever before to foster and maintain. “It's not personal, Sonny. It's strictly business,” said Michael Corleone to his brother. However, the son of the Godfather was wrong. Dead wrong. Business is personal. Technology is fueling the emotional engagement that leads to long-term customer interactions.










Answers To The Questions You Didn’t Ask Reprinted From the Age of Conversation 2

By Toby Bloomberg – Diva Marketing

When was the last time you talked, listened, laughed and

learned with .. not From .. but With your customers or clients? Marketing teaches us the more we know about our target audience the better we can service them.

"The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself." - Peter Drucker.

When Peter Drucker wrote that statement, over fifty years ago, formal market research was how most marketers obtained insights about their customers. Marketers asked the questions and customers gave their opinions. Marketers listened and learned. Flash into the 21st century … technology has changed global communication and that influenced business communications. An internet playground developed that toppled the walls of culture and geographical distance. Conversations exploded. Social media people-to-people talk often includes discussions about experiences with specific brands. In unfiltered, non-directed discussions on blogs, in communities, on review sites, in videos and through photos the good, bad and ugly are now in full Google view for all. An informal consumer review network is being created that often influences, not only brand perception, but purchase decisions. For the first time, our customers are providing answers to questions that were never asked in formal research studies. We now have additional, valuable insights that can supplement traditional research. However, some marketers dismiss this online chat as irrelevant. Others listen in frozen fascination. A few companies are doing something radical that marketers never had the opportunity to do before: talking with their customers in their worlds.











Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, is active on Twitter - a micro blogging community. His advice to CEOs who want to bring social media to their companies - “I think if the CEO starts using Twitter on his/her own and is actually passionate about it, then that passion will eventually rub off on the rest of the organization.” Dell is also changing its business model by engaging with its customers. According to Richard Binhammer, “Social media helps us: learn from conversations with customers every day. That has influenced internal processes as we have identified issues sooner than we might otherwise have, learned to respond faster and generally listen and be in touch.” Understanding your customer and knowing what she wants is like finding the holy grail of marketing. Adopting your business model to include engaging with your customers can help make that happen. The Age of Conversation 2 book brought together nearly 300 of the world’s leading marketers, writers, thinkers and creative innovators for a global collaboration where the impact of digital conversations was explored.










Building The Social Enterprise A Business Story

Reprinted From the Age of Conversation 3 By Toby Bloomberg – Diva Marketing

Once upon a time there was a CEO who worked diligently

for many years building a successful company. One day she (or perhaps it was he)

realized the business model she had carefully crafted was no longer valid. She

found that her customers and prospects were not waiting for her website to be

updated, new ads to launch, sales calls returned or direct mail pieces received in

order to make purchase decisions. She discovered that customers were not in

company service queues waiting for answers to their questions.

Something called the “social web” had created a world where people exchanged

ideas, information and opinions as easily as if they were chatting over a cup of

coffee at their favorite café. So she did what any savvy CEO would do. She

began to exploring the conversations. She was surprised to learn many were not

only about her company’s brands but its service, employees the enterprise and

even her.

“How interesting.” she thought. It was almost like listening to focus group

conversations but without a moderator leading the discussion. Of course it wasn’t

statistically valid as her VP of Consumer Insights pointed out. However, might

this information serve as valuable research to learn about more her customers?

Our CEO was one smart lady. Although, the idea of customers engaging in the

digital world about her brands intrigued her she did not want to replace her

traditional strategy with a shiny new toy. Before she invested in a new set of

tactics in digital venues, she set out to understand how social media might impact











not only customers, prospects and stakeholders but employees and current

business processes.

Getting The Enterprise Social Media Ready

She convened a cross functional task force that included people from digital,

marketing, consumer insights, HR, customer care, IT, operations, PR, legal, sales

and accounting. Creating an environment where people could safely discuss their

concerns she encouraged them to look at challenges/fears and opportunities that

social media could bring to the enterprise.

Team members were charged with researching and reporting about social media

through the lens of: competition, industry trends, customer participation and

expectation and company culture. In addition, each team member was asked to

actively experience and participate in at least one new social media tool.

With the company’s business objectives in clear sight, subsequent sessions

focused on the impact of social media on each department. In addition, impact on

the company culture was explored. It became obvious new processes would have

to be developed and integrated throughout the enterprise including cross

functional communication systems and even hiring qualifications. Our CEO

wanted to ensure that all new hires could work in a cross functional team

environment and had a customer focused attitude. .

The CEO sighed. Becoming a Social Enterprise wouldn’t happen overnight but

she knew that building a stronger organization with better brands always took

time.








In The Age of Conversation -

Business

Transcript of In The Age of Conversation -