The Future of Social Media – Why Actually Listening to Customer’s Preferences is Important

MicroStrategy’s Chief Evangelist and SVP of Social iCommerce Karl-Heinz Land started off their “Holy Grail of Marketing” session by addressing what he meant by: “Is the end of advertising as we know it near?” Assuaging all fears that advertising itself was nearing its end (to the relief of all involved), he simply proposed that perhaps advertising as we’ve known it could soon be ending. Wait, what!? No more spamming and over saturation? How will I know what to BUY! There to calm my fears about this hellish future were a number of respected presenters.

Martha Rogers, one of the founders of Peppers and Rogers Group was the first to go. Rogers led with the idea that advertisers should be treating each customer differently - saying it’s no longer retail but “me-tail”. The key takeaway seemed to be that advertisers/companies need to start using the information that customers are giving them to tailor marketing to them. I mean I won’t lie to you, sometimes I feel like Amazon knows my needs better than I do and it occasionally scares me. However when I find a little extra cash in my wallet (rarely) or feel the need to treat myself to a present, it’s refreshing to see that someone is trying to show me things I might actually like. It’s kind of similar to Bing’s partnership with Facebook. Seeing my friend’s preferences does help me make decisions because I (like 83% of consumers according to Rogers) trust their opinions.

Rogers also stressed how important customer interactions are in forming the opinion of brands, due to transparency that social media has created. I mean as Jason Rockwood of Tribal DDB brought up during his presentation, people love nothing more than complaining online. I personally find it overwhelming at times how much bad service I learn about on Facebook. I’m not entirely sure people like anything, despite what all their ‘liking’ says. So to embrace the future of social media is to realize that every time you make a mistake, people will be broadcasting that to their friends. I know this to be true personally as my friends have proven invaluable in documenting my mistakes for me. Brian Solis, principal of the Altimeter Group, shared a delightful keyword cloud for an airline company that told an extremely negative story – I believe the word “worst” was number one, followed closely by “sucks”. While this was amusing to the audience I’m sure it wasn’t that sweet for the company involved.

Solis argued that if you aren’t adding any value with your social media story, then why do it. He mentioned that people are reaching “social network fatigue”, contending that if brands want to stay relevant then they need to add value with their social plays. Rockwood used party planning as an analogy for social media campaigns that seemed apt. One takeaway that I found especially interesting was when he mentioned companies creating a presence on Facebook or Twitter but not driving anyone there. It was the equivalent of not sending out any invitations to the party. This certainly is an area where display advertising and Microsoft are still a huge part of social media campaigns. Even if Clickthrough rates aren’t exponential, display is still getting the word out, and if the party is enticing then people will show up.

To their credit MicroStrategy seems to offer a very robust product, providing a wealth of demographic data. In fact their Senior Director for Social Media Marketing, Roland Fiege, found out just how robust their solution was when he learned to his displeasure about some of his offspring’s exploits. Now, I don’t know if we’ll need it as a parenting tool just yet, but with demographic data pulled from Facebook, it seems MicroStrategy can certainly help advertisers tailor their messages to each customer and embrace “me-tail”.  Karl-Heinz Land summed it up well by saying “if they trust you with their preferences you have to treat them well.” He used the analogy of a butler. They can provide excellent service because they know a lot about your preferences. Advertisers and marketers need to start listening to the preferences we share every day and begin to become a concierge rather than white noise in a feed.