September 2015
By Zineb Achmoul
As of right now, I am at Stansted Airport ready to fly to Morocco. Precisely, I am seated at Giraffe waiting on my non-bun beef burger with vegan salad, avocado, and sour sauce. See, when ordering my dish I was unconsciously attracted by the “non-bun” type of burger influenced by Michael Gray’s 21 days bikini challenge shared on Facebook. Although I did not succeed in this challenge, not in 21 days, not in three months, I retained his advice, trusted and applied by many others group members. Through his Facebook group, Michael Gray managed to create a community of people with more or less the same goal: having this so highly dreamed of bikini body. Why, even after drastically failing his challenge, I am still faithful to some of Michael Gray’s teachings? Why do I retain information that shaped my consumption and my day to day decisions? What did Michael Gray sell to me? How can Michael Gray become a valuable influencer to a given brand? I am not writing today about food, or body building, not even bikini bodies I am afraid; I am writing today about experience, sense of belonging and retention through social media, three new strategic marketing aspects that any brand needs to be particularly careful with.
My vegan salad made me think of when I first heard of the word vegan; a year ago. I briefly dated someone who was vegan and with me being a-meat-tagine-and-bread-topped-with-chocolate type of girl; I found it very hard to cook vegan dishes which explains the “briefly”. I however made an extra effort, and googled vegan. Instantly I got billion of ideas, vegan products, and recipes, I was surprised! Data around vegan food was to me surprisingly enormous! Data around everything is enormous! As Eric Schmidt said “there were 5 Exabyte of information created between the down of civilization though 2003, but that much information is now created every two days, and the pace is increasing”.
That was one aspect of today digital world that every speaker during the Social Media Week in London agreed on; we generate consequent amount of data, and information every day. The world is changing in a blink of an eye. How can a brand cope with this volume of information?
Before getting into how the world is changing, I will take some time to write about last Social Media Week in London. I am a true lover and believer of social media; I therefore decided to invest in a HQ pass to attend paid and non-paid events and conferences around social media. There were brilliant speeches from digital specialists, experts and thinkers along with great private networking events. Conferences I attended were: “the fight for data”, “crisis of friendship”, “rules of enchantment” “social media return on investment workshop”, “the use of drones to tell story”, “augmented reality”, “virtual reality”, “digital and journalism”, “learning from misfit innovation”, “digital influence” and the “future of live streaming”. All of those conferences were interesting and I would have done more if I could.
What I have learned during the Social Media Week was truly edifying. In term of content, I now see a new meaning of the word monogamy, challenging every definition of brand loyalty. I realised that we have been talking about building relationships with clients while omitting the power of romance in doing business. We managed to miss out on the power of reciprocity; only considering loyalty card as the only tool to retain customers. We have overlooked the misfit strategies, missing on con artists teachings and mafia’s organisation skills. We went all-out to be transparent with clients at the price of the thrill, surprise and excitement. In other words, we do business with our client the way two old married couple sit around dining table sewing and reading newspapers: with monotony.
Well the digital world today is everything but monotonous. New generations are challenging and will continue challenging the way we do business today. In his research, Mark Prensky has segmented the world today in two different groups: Digital Aliens and Digital Natives. According to his definition a Digital Alien is an adult who is comfortable using the newest internet based technologies, while the Digital Native is the younger generation who have grown up with Internet as an integral part of their lives. He calls them generation D or i-Pops. I would add to this segmentation Digital Dinosaurs who are actively against digitisation and drive even I-pops to become Digital Aliens. Those can be old school young parents, conservative teachers, or simply a part of the world where digital technology is not yet well established. But the world is changing.
See, if you still seek to exist in the near future you have to be able to talk, discuss, woo and persuade the upcoming generation. A business model that focuses on product or service will be consequently challenged, shifting the focus on emotion, experience and excitement. Therefore, maintaining a high quality product or service along with customer service should be already granted and not considered as a differential advantage. Even the information process is being challenged; be mainstream media or medical advice. With the Internet, you are no longer the expert advising on your area of expertise, your customers will be well informed and will not come to you for information anymore. With live broadcasting, everyone can become a journalist sharing images, videos, and opinions with the rest of the world. With digital banking, physical branches will cease to exist. The world, as we know it, has already begun to change, let’s cope with this change.
The sense of belonging I felt while reading Michael Gray’s Facebook page led me to be faithful and loyal to his teaching, or at least retain his name to inspire my pieces today. In every marketing textbook the sense of belonging comes in lifestyle and luxury chapters. The only difference was the affordability and accessibility. Because Michael Gray’s was sharing his advice, videos, and food recipes for free, he managed to build a trusting audience. Moreover, he engaged with his audience in a coherent and instantaneous manner, answering to followers’ comments and building a one to one relationship with every follower, and that was the key. The business model for Michael Gray could be to turn this challenge to an ongoing nutrition and workout consultancy against a monthly fee, and it is exactly what he did. He hooked an audience for 21 days before promoting his well-deserved monthly charges. Now imagine MetLife Insurance wants to fight against obesity and need to sensitise the audience about the possibility of combining healthy food with tasty food and to lose weight without having to leave home. With an established audience, Michael Gray has true stories to share, advocates to promote a healthy lifestyle and story to fill marketing content.
Today, with the power of Digital Media each brand can find its allocated “white lighter”, just like Michael Gray, to promote and market its emotion and soul. Let’s keep an eye on that
My next piece will be reporting on Selfies vs. Dronies in Social Media, to stay in touch follow me on Twitter: @AZedDigital
The Insightful People 