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You’re paying the fee for being unremarkable. How to use conversations to drive business, new ideas and happiness.

Polle de Maagt (@polledemaagt) for Social Media Congres

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Hello. I am Polle de Maagt.

I create impact through

conversations at a pretty cool

company called InSites Consulting.

We work mostly because we’re

committed to take research

forward, but brands like

Ben&Jerry’s, Telenet, Danone and

Philips agreed to pay us for it.

Let’s talk about some simple social media basics. (and I won’t insult you with showing some fancy graphics and statistics about Facebook growth or Twitter followers)

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It’s not about being on Facebook. Or Twitter. Yes, Twitter is huge. And Facebook even bigger. But they are both platforms, not end

goals. So it really is about if and how both can help you reach your end goal. Which is

most likely not about having a Facebook fan page and more about driving

conversations, customer retention, sales or brand value.

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It’s not about being a big brand. With big brands come big problems. Never look

for an excuse in just being a small company with

little budgets. When it comes to connecting with

consumers, real relationships work. And size, for

once, doesn’t matter.

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And it certainly isn’t about being the first mover in adopting new technology. Mobile, augmented reality, location

based services are all just awesome.

And yes, there is PR-value in being the

first Augmented Reality bakery in your

neighborhood. But is that really what

you want your consumers to talk

about?

“ “ Advertising is the fee for being unremarkable.

Robert Stephens (GeekSquad)

Honestly, sentences like the world has changed, power has shifted to the consumer, increase your share of conversation, consumers trust each other most, shifting power from marketers to consumers, marketers are no longer in control, social media strategy and learn to lose control make me puke in

my mouth a bit.

While it is really really simple.

Customer retention is cheaper than acquisition. Really.

Happy customers drive retention and conversations. Are you really committed to make your customers happy?

Happiness is about managing expectations. Under-promise. Over-deliver. Do more than customers expect, but don’t over-do it.

Conversations drive business. What do you trust most? Peer reviews.

People out-converse brands. People are more authentic, more passionate and have lower overhead cost. Period.

90% of conversations is done offline. Even these guys, a group of twitter and Facebook fanatics called ‘Young Scum’ have a regular offline meetup. More at http://youngscum.com

Everything a company does is communication. Products, packaging and customer service are more genuine than marketing. So leverage that, like KLM did with their KLM Surprise campaign.

Capitalize on the people and products you already have. We built upon the things we were already doing.

Conversations are just a part of the consumer journey. Traditional advertising still works, past experience is really important and real interactions are the dealmakers/dealbreakers.

Conversations travel through (social) channels. Nike launched a local store in Amsterdam, but capitalized on it via Facebook and Twitter. Even better, users started using Hyves to spread the word.

Company culture makes a difference. Every company has it’s stories and ambassadors, like Nike’s Ekins. Capitalize on these stories and turn your employees in an army of ambassadors.

Company culture makes a difference. And it really isn’t about big corporations. Bakery ingredient supplier Puratos offers free bread to it’s employees.

People out-converse brands, so you better start create stuff that is conversation-worthy. Product development, R&D, customer service and company culture overtake advertising as the most important way of communicating with customers.

This is a radical change and asks for radical changes in the way brands and organizations communicate.

“ “ Commit acts, not ads.

Leo Burnett

“ “ People out-converse brands, so you better start

to create stuff worth sharing.

Tom de Bruyne

Think stories, not technology. Stories stick. Kay Mook gained the Antwerp Zoo 300K extra visitors and almost became product of the year 2009. More at http://polle.me/ccjSNL

Think service, not product. Do more than customers expect.

Manage expectations. Under-promise. Over-deliver. Do more than customers expect.

What do you want your consumers to tell about you? Is it about how cool your advertising was? Do you want them to talk about deals? Or is it about something else?

Monetary value versus conversation value. What are your best customers? The ones that spend the most money or the ones that bring in the most new customers? Plan for both.

Give your customers something to talk about. Ambassadors just want to tell other, so help them! Choqoa support fans by giving them chocolate bars and highlighting them in their newsletter.

Use your ambassadors to promote your business. Think how you can make your customers talk about you.

Connect with your consumers and use them for reach. Think how you can make your customers talk about you. KLM highlighted their Facebook fans of the day on Facebook.

Helping people helps. Exceeding customer expectations builds loyalty (81% repeats, 63% recommends) and falling below customer expectations erodes loyalty (5%/71%).

Create things worth sharing. Think about small things worth talking about.

Commit random acts of kindness. Think about small things worth talking about.

Make it extra-easy to share or to subscribe. Make it easy to subscribe of share your content via twitter, Facebook or other social buttons. Example: http://polle.me/ij19j4

Measure. Measure views, clicks, but even more important: your return on investment. Extremely simple, but effective: the Net Promoter Score.

Not convinced? We asked 500 European marketers how they perform in terms of return on investment, turnover growth, profitability, market share and customer satisfaction.

Offline WoM Road map

WoM

Product improvement

The best performing marketers do three things that make them stand out. * Conversation Readiness research amongst 500 European marketers

It’s really simple: Act human. Build upon the things you’re already doing. Think conversations. And on top of that: here’s some structure to help you out.

The three pillars of conversation management.

Observe Join Facilitate

Start with observing and listening. There are simple tools to observe what consumers are doing. Via search.twitter.com or more advanced tools. But what about customer emails?

Facilitate. Ben & Jerry’s crowdsources their marketing plan and icecream flavors via an online platform with brand fans. Photo by jason.dsilva

Join. Helping helps. Exceeding customer expectations builds loyalty (81% repeats, 63% recommends) and falling below customer expectations erodes loyalty (5%/71%).

Use pilot projects to learn and change. Telenet launched a beta product to let consumer help them eventually create a better product. Think in intrinsic, learning and change KPI’s.

Be maniacal about measuring and tweaking. Measure views, clicks, but even more important: your return on investment. Extremely simple, but effective: the Net Promoter Score.

You can forget most of the things I said in this introduction. But please, remember these 3 things.

Conversations drive business. Companies that connect with their consumers perform better. So start the conversation.

1)

To drive conversations, exceed expectations and create stuff worth sharing. Don’t plan only for life time money value, but for life time conversation value.

2)

Start with observing, but start with simple ways to drive conversations. Start monitoring, start with pilots and learn while doing.

3)

Read the manual.

Seriously.

Read it.

I hope I was worth sharing.

Send me an email at

polle@insites.eu or find me on

twitter at @polledemaagt.

Find the presentation at

http://polle.me/smc11