This post is by Michael Pollock, the original owner of Small Business Branding. Yaro Starak now owns and produces the latest content for this blog.
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Imagine this conversation (I’m paraphrasing) …
Customer 1: This product sucks.
Product Maker: No it doesn’t, you’re using it wrong. Try this …
Customer 2: Dude, really, your product sucks because of this one feature.
Customer 3: I agree with customers 1 and 2.
Product Maker: Yeah, when you put it that way, that feature is pretty lame. I’ll see if we can do it another way.
This is a conversation that actually took place. I tracked it down on a message board. Wasn’t hard to find either. I just entered the name of a product into Google and clicked "Google Search." (UPDATE: Link to message board.)
It used to be you had to spend gobs of cash to find out what people were saying about you, if they were saying anything at all.
It used to be you had to spend gobs of cash just to get people talking about you (i.e. advertising). For example, how much do you think it would have set you back to take a S. African-made wine brand and build it into something people are talking about all over the globe? Millions, right? Not any more.
Blogger Hugh Macleod has spent the last three months spreading good will – in the form of free Stormhoek wine – among the Eastern Western European blogosphere.
Hugh Macleod: "The main purpose of this exercise is to make Stormhoek the first major wine brand to take the Cluetrain seriously. ‘Markets are conversations’ etc. This freebie promo is hopefully not too bad a conversation starter. Time will tell."
Next, according to Hugh "is to roll the idea out to both the United States and Western Europe.
We’re looking into the logisitics now (shipping costs etc.). I’ll keep
you posted."
It used to be it took an act of congress to force an 80 billion dollar company to change the way it does things. Now all it takes is one pissed off, buzzing blogger.
"DELL COMPUTERS, INC., WHICH CAME under
fire this summer from blogger Jeff Jarvis, says it has new procedures
for dealing with the blogosphere. The company’s public relations
department monitors blogs, looking for commentaries and
complaints–and, starting about a month ago, began forwarding
complaints with personally identifiable information to the customer
service department so that representatives can contact dissatisfied
consumers directly, said Dell spokeswoman Jennifer Davis. The move
appears to have been triggered by a series of "Dell Hell" posts penned
by Jarvis about his problems with a Dell computer. Jarvis first wrote
about the topic in June, and continued posting updates through the
summer." Shankar Gupta, Media Post Publication
The lesson, while not necessarily new, is glaringly simple, yes?
Part one: Make/offer a remarkable product, and do everything you can to get people talking about it. The twist, of course, is you no longer need to spend millions on a a Super Bowl commercial to do that.
Part two: When people do start talking about you, respond to what they’re saying. ASAP.
Part three: Free booze can’t hurt either.