What Leaders of Great Brands Understand about Building Trust Online

Bob PearsonPresident, The Blog Council

Chief Technology & Media Officer, WeissComm GroupJune 2, 2009

#1) Customers are co-shaping your reputation everyday

Are you accidently outsourcing the building of your brand?

Customers Shape First Impressions

Customers are Changing Faster than Companies

• Breadth – 500k new online customers each day

• Location -- >40% of online in Asia• 1st Impressions -- YouTube Is 2nd largest search

engine• Habits -- Brazil one of leading consumers of

online infoAre you a student or an observer?

Countries Habits are Changing as They Mature Online -- Brazil

#2) Leaders will identify issues before they happen

Customers assume we are listening to their issues in real time

Patterns are Clues Waiting to Be Found

• Patterns emerge before public awareness – A common problem emerges in a forum in Beijing, a blog in

the UK and a mention on twitter in the U.S.– Your multi-function hot issues team springs in to action to

analyze what is happening and prepare – When the issue becomes public, you are ready with answers

• Customers trust us to be smarter on identifying issues• You decide that if a hot issue is defined, it must be solved• Your company continuously integrates online learning’s

into key parts of your company(institutional memory)

#3) You Realize that Your Customer Does Not Care Where You Want Them To Go

Customers are part of their own liquid network

Become a friend who can be trusted

A Tectonic Shift is Occurring in Where Conversations Occur

• Language – customers speak online in their first language (10 reach 95%)

• Location – Facebook, Twitter, Forums• Time of Day – Ex/low volume during day, high

volume in evenings

Where do your customers like to hang-out, learn and share?

10 Languages Reach 95%Hindi & Russian are Next

Trust Builds When You Visit Your Customer in their Home

#4) You Know that <1% of a Customer’s Time is Spent Purchasing a Product

99% of time is spent browsing and socializingYou build trust by being there when you are needed, not when you need the customer

THE REAL WORLD OF OUR CUSTOMERS ONLINE

Opinions are formed during the 99% of time outside of the purchase path

The Purchase Experience

<1% of a person’s time is spent actually purchasing

our products

Broadband users spend 1 hour, 40 minutes (48% of their spare time) online, and more than half of this is spent accessing entertainment and communication

E-Commerce Will Become E-Community

• Reality -- <1% of time is spent buying online. 99% is spent browsing & socializing

• Peer Influence – 3 of 4 customers look to their peers for advice on a purchase

• Integration – why would we ask a customer to go to multiple sites? The value is…….?

Convergence is led by convenience

#5) You Focus on How People Consume Content & Understand How it is Changing

Customers decide where they will learn

It is not via advertising……

The Media World isn’t Changing…..it Changed

• Media Outlets – 74 of top 100 outlets for Techmeme are blogs/online sites

• Bloggers – 3 of 4 look to each other for their next story• Customers – 3 of 4 look to each other for purchase advice• Conversations – are the driver of SOV, influence and

recommendations

Don’t define it as offline or online. It’s all one media world. Just know which conversations are defining your brand

The New Media

17

Your Broadcast StationIncreasingly, the 1st choice for learning

6) Your Customer is Discussing Your Brand Everyday

Do you know where they are occurring?Are you a participant or observer or are

you absent?

How does your customer discuss your brand? Do you know with precision?

WHAT DOES THIS TELL ME?Top 50 most mentioned words in conversations surrounding

“Pharmaceutical” over the past 30 days.

Dynamic Drill Down

1. River of News2. Topic Trends3. Conversation Cloud4. Language5. Media Type6. Post Tag7. Region8. Sentiment9. Source Tag10. User Assignment

Do you know where the real traffic is?• Allstate insurance – 3.99MM

• Allstate insurance company – 943k

• Geico.com – 1.83MM

• Geico insurance – 1.77MM

• State Farm insurance company – 4.9MM

Or

• Insurance quote – 31.99MM

• Insurance group – 22.3MM

• Home insurance – 75.8MM

• Auto insurance – 64.8MM

What is being said about your brand in each key language?

7) There Isn’t a Destination for a Customer

Visiting your site is not their goal, no matter how pretty it looks

We are expected to just sort of “be there” when needed

Syndication of Content MattersMore than Site Traffic

• Micro-Communities – the social media world grows & fragments, simultaneously

• Customer-Driven Preference – “I want what I want where I want it”. Stop “spamming me”.

• Participation is a Choice – if companies don’t listen, customers vote via lack of traffic and participation.

What is your content syndication plan?

10-20% of Your Customers Will Call You Each Year Due to a Problem

80-90% will not call you despite a problem

Few will call you just to catch up

Q&As matter

Word of mouth matters

Partnering with customers matters

8) Customers Want to Do Three Things to Help Each Other

You build trust by being part of this process

Ideas, Knowledge, Solutions• Share ideas – let’s improve the next product

or service together• Share product knowledge – here is what I

know…hope it helps you. • Help peers with problems – I had the same

problem, here is what I did.

Over 11,000 Ideas & 325+ implemented

Think Big -- Empower your customers to share their knowledge and benefit the world

Solved button added to Original Post; clicking it will take user to AS

AS Post Turns Green and logo added

#9) We don’t have to measure trust internally, we live it

Our employees feel free to help each other and, as a result, our company

Leverage the world’s greatest operating system – the web

Employees don’t change when they arrive for work

• They prefer blogs• They like to share ideas and comments• They want real-life video, not canned

productions• They want to help each other, not be polite to

senior management and hold in their thoughts

10) We Judge a Person on How They Interact With Us

Guess what….customers do the same thing when they shop with us online

Shopping is Changing Permanently

• Ratings & Reviews – your peers define the brand and experience for you

• Co-Browsing – your peers help you shop• Contextual Content – info you want appears

when you discuss it

Individuals in companies can have the respect of peers. How many “company peers” do you have?

11) We Listen to our Customers, so We Create New Communities

Think outside the box, then get rid of the box

A community-driven site

Customers Prefer Content that Helps their business

Partnering with Customers

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12) We Know Preparing for Yesterday is Ineffective

Old models and habits hold back innovation

Watch for “antibodies”

Ask yourself if you know the answers to these questions

• Since mobile will be the leading source to go online in the next few years, our mobile plan will do………..

• Since ten lanugages reach 95% of the online world, we are having conversations with customers in x today and y in the U.S. alone

• We know Facebook is growing fast, but we’re also participatng in x, y and z properties, since they have high potential

• In China (or France or Czech or Brazil), we are active in the local sites, such as Toudou, since they are the online leaders in their country for video (or photos or search or other)

• We know the world’s greatest operating system is the web, so our employees can now access all competitive information in real time by xyz tool on abc platform

Yesterday’s Thinking Leads Us to Place High Value on Depreciating Assets

• The Top Rankings Matter – mainstream media is decreasing in total SOV online

• The Brand is King – personalities drive brands more than brands alone online

• The World is Important, But We Really Focus Mainly on the U.S. – 53 countries have English as a language and see similar content

• High Brand Awareness is Good, We’ll Build Brand Value in the Future Locally – your brand is being shaped by your customers now

• Customers Count on Us – nope, they count on each other, not you

Observations on the Old School

• They are old school, but don’t realize it • They think tweaking the media mix will work• They wear ties, sound smart and have an

answer for everything and often represent yesterday’s thinking

• They are planning to succeed in a world that won’t exist in a few years

• They like to “content dump” to get rid of their messages in hopes someone will find it

13) We Understand Ethical Behavior is a Key Part of Maintaining Trust

We don’t support Flogs or SplogsWe would never create a fake ad, so

why a fake blog post?

#14) We know that Leaders will enter and become relevant in conversations that occur everyday in

every language all around the world in communities of importance to our customers

Companies that cling to the past may not realize it, but they will lose relevance.

MESSAGE

EXPERIENCE

CONVERSATION

RELATIONSHIPS

AFFINITY&

TRUST

WE BECOME CONVERSATION ARCHITECTS

Key Coordinates• The Blog Council --

www.blogcouncil.org

• My personal blog -- www.csmg.us

• Everything else -- www.twitter.com/bobpearson1845