Like most mornings before I get my day rolling, I check the internets and see what’s going on. Lo and behold, my buddy Bryan Willmert shared this article about gamification from Mashable. In this article, we are presented with the game mechanics needed for customer loyalty:
Define the “grind” - a clear and easy-to-understand action as the core of your product and loyalty effort
Lay down an XP (“experience points”) system
Create five social actions
Develop a Social Loop With Appointment Mechanics
Have a Reward System Based on SAPS (non-cash rewards by the way)
As I read it, I was reminded of something I posted a couple of years ago where I recommended my former employer change their focus from customer acquisition to customer loyalty. Now, I’m not naive as I completely understand in the automotive industry, sales are king, BUT I will say that times have changed and that focus might need to make a shift towards loyalty, customer relationship marketing, customer experience or whatever you want to call it.
My “out of the box” idea to my friends at The General would be to take the $10 million you pulled from Facebook advertising and the money you would have spent on the Super Bowl and invest some (or all?) of it into a platform that develops the Apple following I’ve heard many of my former colleagues talk about when I was there. If you want to develop a car culture where you have people talking about you on their own, provide recommendations and not have to rely mainly on incentives, why not give it a shot?
Check out the following chart that just happened to pop into my inbox as I was writing this:
Most companies would love to see this chart about them, wouldn’t they? Things are different now, especially online. Investment must be made and the platform and consumers need to be cultivated. The biggest question is, are you patient enough to wait?
If you saw Moneyball, you’ll know the scene. It’s the scene that summarizes why I am the way that I am. It’s the scene that explains why I want to challenge the “way things have always been done” because when it gets to that point, it’s time to do something new. It’s the scene that explains why I challenge those that ask what the ROI of social is when the only measurement I can get from a large TV media buy is impressions (bold statement to make but certainly appropriate).
Marketing is different. I subscribe to the notion that “social media” has transformed marketing from megaphone to dialogue. Consumers now expect to have conversations with brands. The DVR era has made commercials an easy thing to skip, but guess what…brands are putting them on YouTube so they can get more eyeballs and socializing them on Facebook and Twitter. That’s a little funny to me.
I think many people and brands understand this and are trying to figure it out. We all know what Old Spice did in taking their traditional TV commercial and transforming it into a platform that in a humorous way talked to its consumers and fans. They understood this “trend” and took a chance on something that was different.
The critics of social media and those that say it doesn’t work only have themselves to blame. I recently read an article from Ian Schafer on Ad Age (definitely take the time to read it) where he talks about this very thing. Two things resonated with me.
FACEBOOK IS NOT A PUBLISHER. FACEBOOK IS A PLATFORM. And it’s the way people spend the most time with digital media.
Solely blaming Facebook for their inability to deliver advertising ROI, or enough metrics, is like blaming the school you went to for your salary not being high enough. Advertisers are in full control of the experiences they create on and off the platform.
At the end of the day, we control the advertising switch. It’s up to us to flip the switch and do things that engage consumers and make them want to engage with you. That includes using the platforms for conversation and not publishing as well as embracing technology and allowing the consumers to have the power to make their brand experiences personal.
“The reason for this, he says, is due to the auto industry’s choice to focus on optimization over innovation. Optimization is all about reducing risk, while innovation is about increasing it in order to achieve the breakthrough that will push a business to the next level.”
What happened? Has an industry that was founded on innovation gotten to comfortable and arrogant that innovation no longer needed to happen? Instead of fighting the government on gas mileage, why not embrace the challenge and offer consumers a product that provides value? The electric car, whether the Chevrolet Volt or Nissan Leaf, is an innovative technology. They are solving for a real consumer need as gas prices begin to rise.
Last week, I shared a couple of videos that demonstrated how 2 other established industries could redefine themselves…newspapers and books. How great would it be if these prototypes actually became a reality! The technology is available TODAY!
Other countries are adopting technology at a faster rate than the United States. Look at this infographic on cell phones and usage. Specifically, look at the average number cell phones per person. Notice that the U.S. isn’t even in the top 10! Mobile is driving a lot of the new technologies today. My point in all of this is that if auto manufacturers took the time to innovate instead of trying to maintain a business model that is long since outdated maybe there would not be bankruptcy or the need to put everything on sale. You could possibly develop a customer base that is as passionate as Apple!
One final thing to leave you with…I saw the following status on Facebook this morning:
Reading the auto industry media take on telematics and infotainment, all I can say is, if you think this is all about being able to say “play genre rock” to your dashboard…you don’t get it.
Technology affords so much more than that. Wouldn’t it be great if your vehicle could be interconnected with every device you own? Providing value instead of gimmicks?
It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without all of us thinking about the things in life that we are thankful for. Sometimes life gets so busy that we often forget to take a moment and reflect on our lives and truly appreciate all that we have. This last year has been an awesome opportunity to learn about myself and what matters the most. With that, here is my list.
God. This will always be numero uno in my book. I always go back to Luke 1:37…”For nothing is impossible with God.”
Julianne. She puts up with a lot from me and still stands by my side and is so supportive.
Gina. My firstborn who has such a passionate heart.
Joshua. My son who has the same determination and focus as I do.
Jessica. My princess who has eyes and a smile that will melt anyone.
Luke. My little boy who is not afraid of anything and keeps Julianne and I on our toes.
My dad. Quite simply, he is my hero and who I strive to be as a father each day.
Kensington Community Church. This place has allowed me to grow in my faith by connecting with great people and great leaders.
Bryan Willmert. Yes it’s a little sappy but Bryan and I have become really good friends through our passion for Christ and the social web.
The social web. The number of quality and intelligent people that I’ve met through Facebook, Twitter and blogs is amazing. Special shout out to Gini Dietrich because she represents the benefits of what Twitter can do for people.
There you have it. By the way, numbers 3 – 6 are all equal just in case you were wondering. As you gather this week for your Thanksgiving meals, take a moment and appreciate the people and things in your life and let them know it.
Location based services have been the talk of the tech community over the last year. Foursquare, Gowalla and now Facebook Places are being adopted and used more as people get into the game. People share their location in their Facebook profile or their Twitter stream and it’s provided another avenue for people to connect and make comments.
What I think is yet to be solved is how marketers can leverage these services to get their brands in front of people who might share some information with their networks. This answer might be coming soon now that Get Glue has jumped into the “check in” scene. At a high level, Get Glue allows users to “check in” to their leisure activities:
Watching a TV Show
Listening to Music
Reading a Book
Watching a Movie
Playing a Video Game
Thinking about a Topic
Chatting about a Celebrity
Drinking Wine
Now where I think brands can play is in any of the “paid media” activities like TV, Music, Movies, Games or Music. Imagine a brand, Chevrolet for example, developing a promotion that encourages viewers to check in to the show, Glee, and watch it in it’s entirety INCLUDING the commercials for its brand? I think there is still undiscovered opportunity here that might allow brands to get something for the millions in media dollars they spend each year.
When I watched the Super Bowl last year, I paid close attention to my Twitter stream when the commercials aired. It was amazing to see the other game that was going on…rating the commercials. Could Get Glue be a tool that advertisers could leverage as they continue to look for new ways get in front of consumers? I guess we’ll find out when the first advertiser gives it a shot.
What do you think? Would you use it?
For a great blog post about Get Glue, CLICK HERE to read Richard MacManus’ (from Read Write Web) interview with Get Glue founder, Alex Iskold.
One thing that I’ve been wanting to consistently do on this blog is make you aware of the good things that are happening to revitalize the city of Detroit. Much like Stephen Clark and his #backchannel creation which encourages the viewers of WXYZ‘s newscasts to contribute to the positive stories happening within the region, I want to hear about positive things happening in Detroit. People across the country need to know that Detroit and the entire state of Michigan has a lot to offer. ”Michiganders” or “Michiganians” are a passionate bunch. We want to make a difference in this community and we look for ways to DO things to make a difference rather than just talk about it.
This leads me to this week’s positive story. Detroit Servathon has been around for the last few years and sponsored by Oakland Christian School. The goal has been to raise money and make a difference in the Detroit community by having the students volunteer and serve others. What a great teaching opportunity for kids from kindergarten to 12th grade to learn about serving others.
Detroit SERVATHON 2010 now includes five other Christian schools in Southeast Michigan: Franklin Road Christian, Macomb Christian Schools, Parkway Christian School, Southfield Christian School and Washtenaw Christian Academy. Over 5,000 students from preschool to 12th grade from all schools will each have service projects to complete. You can check them out here. As a parent of an OCS student, it makes me proud be part of an educational community that teaches its students the importance of putting others needs above your own. I’m really looking forward to sitting down with my kids and talking to them about their experiences on September 23rd.
The big project for Detroit Servathon requires help from you. By now, you all have heard about Pepsi’s Refresh Project. Through the hard work of many people, including my wife Julianne, Detroit Servathon can win a grant of $50,000 to install a playground in the Detroit Community under the guidance of Central Detroit Christian. We just need you to go out and help us vote. If we can finish the month of September in the top 10 of the $50,000 grant category, we can move forward with the playground.
There are 3 ways you can vote:
Text your vote to Pepsi at 73774with our project code 102331 in the message area
Click HERE to vote for DetroitServathon and our 8 partners
You can vote all 3 ways once a day until September 30th. My hope is that we won’t need to try again in October. My challenge to the Detroit community and the rest of you reading this is to propel this project into the Top 10 THIS MONTH. If you think your vote doesn’t count, it does. Please help us make a difference.
As companies continue to “test and learn” and do research on what makes a successful corporate brand page on Facebook, I’m here to tell you that I think I have the “secret sauce”. However, before I reveal the secret, let’s first go back to when we began to use this tool which has grown to 500 million users. Why did you jump on the Facebook bandwagon? What was its appeal? The most common answer I’ve heard from people was the ability to connect with friends and family. Facebook provided us with a platform to instantly find out what was going on in the lives of people in our lives and re-connect with people we hadn’t heard from in a long time.
So what is the best strategy for a brand or company to use when managing an online community? Go back to why we all joined Facebook in the first place. It was to connect with people. Now take this same strategy for your personal Facebook page and apply it to your corporate page and see what happens. If you want to know what the people that “like” your brand want to see on a page, ask them and start a conversation. If you want to encourage your fans to upload pictures with your product, ask them and start a conversation. I think you get the idea.
What I am trying to provide is perspective. If you have participated in this space long enough, most people would say that Facebook, and all the social tools for that matter, provide the platform to have real time conversation with people. I just watched a DVD tonight that talked about peoples need to be in relationship or in community with one another. Being in a community allows for trust to grow. For companies, if you are trying to sell something, your customers need to trust you. Once a company has established trust, you now have an individual (a.k.a. customer) that believes in your brand and what it stands for.
There you have it…the secret sauce. If you really think about why you joined Facebook, it’s not really a secret. Is it?
Something has been on my mind lately. Well a lot of things have been on my mind but I’ll write about one of those things today. It’s the idea of sharing, particularly with the social web.
Many of the people I interact with in this space all agree on what we, as users who are passionate about the web, need to be focusing on: educating, teaching, sharing information. For many companies, they are still trying to figure out how Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and the like can help business and engage consumers.
I was having a conversation with Shannon Paul last night at a TweetUp for Jeff Pulver‘s 140 Conference in Detroit. She was telling me about an idea that she had to bring downtown companies together and really begin educating everyone about how the internet and the social web can help businesses. This is a blossoming idea…hopefully more to share on that later.
On another occasion, Jason Falls was presenting to some folks at GM and he gave us his strategy for Twitter, “Share good (stuff).”
I’m amazed at the quality of people that I’ve been able to meet because of Twitter. Each and every one wants to make a difference and educate others. For those of us that make a living in this space, I encourage all of you to continue with that mindset and share the good stuff. We all know that the internet isn’t a fad. It’s going to continue to evolve the way we communicate with each other. We have an opportunity to continue educate people and companies and build community.
In this spirit, I wanted to remind of you what’s happening in Detroit on October 20. The 140 Conference will be happening at The Fillmore Theatre. This conference has the opportunity to make a lasting impact on this community. What is the story you want to tell? Do you know someone who has a great story? This conference has been about how the web has promoted change for good and made a difference. If you already have experiences on how the social web has helped you or if you’re just remotely curious, register today! A lot can be learned at this one day event.
What do you know? How are you going to share it? Have a great weekend everyone!
UPDATE: I just saw that my friend Dave Murray just posted this on his blog…dare I say great minds think alike?
Absolutely hilarious. That was my first thought as I started seeing the Old Spice guy make it’s way through my twitter stream yesterday. Old Spice has taken it to the next level by having Isaiah Mustafa, also known as Old Spice Guy, respond by video to comments on its YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter accounts. What started out with a commercial has quickly turned into an instant case study on how to integrate the social web into a traditional campaign.
I’m always looking for ways to get the ideas and concepts behind the social web accepted. Case studies certainly help. The thing I find most interesting, however, is that these concepts really aren’t new. If you are trying to “sell” a brand to a consumer, the best way to do it is by building relationships with the people you want to buy your products. This typically means thinking about your consumer first and what their needs are.
If you think about traditional marketing methods, it generally begins with launch planning, big media spending to air a 30 second commercial, billboards, magazine ads, etc. How can “we” (insert brand here) get our message out to the most people in the quickest way possible? Oh by the way, we have our website, facebook page and twitter account that we can also use to blast our messages to everyone.
I do believe these still have merit but what I do think is that brands (my company included) need to go back to thinking about what our customers want and not what we want. I was fortunate enough to sit in a presentation from Jason Falls (Social Media Explorer) today. One of his final points was for marketers (today’s talk was geared towards GM and its divisions) to think beyond the web. To me, this meant thinking about coming up with marketing and promotions that integrate all aspects of consumer touch points which includes the social web.
What can we do to help people connect?
What can we do to enhance their online or offline experience?
What can we do to facilitate and encourage sharing?
What can we do to drive them to the showroom?
These were great questions that I hope encourages all of us to go back to the basics of what (I believe) marketing is all about…the consumer.
Technology has given consumers the means to ignore traditional marketing methods today. Think about the DVR and how many commercials you watch. What are you Mr. Marketer going to do to not be ignored and get to know the people you want to buy your products?
Happy Friday everyone! It’s hard to believe we are half way through 2010! Good thing for me, this time of the year usually signals a vacation and I’m so ready!
Anyway, in today’s post, I wanted to give you a quick update on something I talked about a couple of months ago, Detroit Reverse. If you recall, from August 2 – 6, 500 students and leaders from the City and Suburbs will converge on the campus of Wayne State University. They will stay in the dorms “with the goal of identifying destructive systems in our culture and building relationships that will fight against them.”
The vision for year one of Detroit Reverse is to build and grow relationships between 2 areas of southeast Michigan that have traditionally been at odds and made assumptions about one another. The long term vision hopes this can grow into multiple locations over the next 5 years and truly having an impact on the community and the region.
Imagine just how impactful this will be. 500 people united and passionate about something and driving change in a region desperate for it. Who knows, maybe this might have an impact on my Detroit Lions too!
Now how do you turn vision into action? Well you can certainly help. Sponsors are needed to help support our students financially. It costs $149 per student to experience Reverse. You can participate by donating online at the Detroit Reverse website. Please consider helping out this group students by investing in their future.
Detroit SERVATHON 2010 now includes five other Christian schools in Southeast Michigan: 
