The old school way of doing this was to see these folks as “targets” to put labels on them and then treat everybody under a certain label the same. These “targets” found and analyzed in truly dehumanizing scientific ways.
Things are different now. Now you need to get to know who would be most likely to be a supportive, repeat word of mouth buyer/customer/promoter. You need to get all deep and really describe that person in terms that fit.
Instead of a big long thing today I’m going to share a collection of small things…things I’ve learned, thought about, stumbled over, avoided and always had a kernal of an article in them. And trust me they all fit together.…
Historically, the process of selling goods and services fell generally into what came to be called the Sales Funnel Model. In this model businesses offered their goods and services through advertising campaigns that were largely aimed at the constant stream of potential buyers…this was a mass sales approach. Businesses would “catch” potential buyers as they stumbled into the wide mouth of their sales funnel…
Did you know that the first report and photo on the recent airplane crash in the Hudson river came from a passenger on a ferry heading to the crash site? Big deal right? Well, it is because the passenger used his iPhone to capture the photo and send the news our over Twitter. The photo and story was picked up by the media but all those connected to the guy with the iPhone got the news first. I was connected to someone who was connected to him and got the news almost instantly. The same thing happened with the earthquake in southern California this pas summer, the news of the earthquake beat the media.
In case you haven’t noticed, the days of persuasion are fast disappearing, being replaced by an ever increasing Opt-in world. This concept means that consumers are exercising their power of choice, they are looking closer at what they buy, what the “need” and deciding if it is worth their while. Another thing is this is not just happening to the “fluff” stuff, it’s happening to the “necessities”, consumers are looking for value, and help in satisfying their need. While monetary value is an important factor it is becoming less and less the sole determining factor in buying decisions in fact research is finding that the total perceived value a product makes to the life of the buyer is becoming more and more a factor.
I want to point out that what I am describing here is a process, a way of looking at how we create whether it involves groups of people or individuals and what we need in the way of tools and environments to support us along the way. The concepts and processes are not linear or pretty and admittedly leave lots of room for further exploration and development.
Let’s get going..
Now that we have the creative spectrum somewhat sketched out let’s see how it can work with the social media. The primary element of social media, in fact its’ keystone is connectivity at levels that far exceed what we could have imagined even a year ago. And… this connectivity has different levels of applicability depending on the users intent and goals. Before we look in detail at specific social media let’s try to find what Creators, Makers and Producers need to succeed, what tools are most useful to them. The brief list below summarizes common tools and methods, some have been available but limited in their usefulness.
Many of my posts so far have hinted at a phenomenon that has increased pace of change in the world leading many to wonder often doubtfully about it’s role in day to day life. Much of the doubt comes from those who are mystified by technology and can’t imagine how technology can help them. Since the phenomenon I am talking about is technology based but it is and will effect the way we live our lives far more than we can imagine now. Technology and specifically the web has been seen in the not to distant past as an isolating influence on our culture, causing us to lose touch with the world around us as our intimate circle of friends shrinks. There have been fears of a growing social alienation especially in the iGeneration as we have tried to understand the meaning of Facebook, MySpace etc. Not even a year ago I really didn’t see the point of Facebook but that has changed.
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