Question 1: Imagine you are a rock star. (Or famous politician). You are waiting for a delayed flight at the airport. Someone comes running to you and tells you excitedly that there are 1,500 of your fans -- 3 plane loads full -- two gates down from where you are at, dying to talk to you. Would you not at least go shake some hands, sign some autographs and get some pictures taken?
Question 2: Imagine you are at a tradeshow and someone tells you that 10,000 of your most loyally engaged customers are packed in the hall 50 feet away from you. Would you not go and talk to some of them to hear what they have to say? Or even better, say something to them and get their instant feedback?
Question 3: Imagine your VP of Product Marketing comes running to you and tells you excitedly that there are TWO MILLION of your company's loyally engaged fans, waiting to hear from you on Twitter and to tell you in great detail about exactly how they experience your product, how you can improve it and how they want you to succeed. Would you not start some conversations, sharing your thoughts with them once a week (or month!), monitoring the feedback and spend at least 15 minutes daily on your Flipboard social news aggregation app to skim through your fans comments?
If you answered "NO" to the above, then your business deserves the disasters that come your way -- and they are coming, sooner than you think!
It is not just biblical punishment for arrogance. There was a time when product marketers would pay top dollar for focus groups, market research, consumer surveys and other such niceties to find out what their consumers were REALLY thinking, how they experienced their products, etc.
Then the world changed in 2011. But business schools could not change. How could they? Their faculty still guards their "proprietary" Powerpoint slides like an ironically ancient treasure in an open world where someone paid $120 million for a company called "SlideSHARE"! Marketing MBAs are still being taught the "cutting edge" ways that worked in 2002 -- just about as relevant as an e-book on surviving a dinosaur stampede.
So today, when social media tools offer powerful monitoring and feedback gathering capabilities, B2C high-tech companies (who are expected to be particularly savvy when it came to social media management) seem to be lost at sea.
Consider these case studies of 3 CEOs of high-tech companies, well poised to take advantage of the active social communities they are blessed with yet failing to do so resulting in a shrinkage of their customer base.
1. CEO raises pricing, makes a video, then apologizes and backtracks. Company: Netflix
Business: Online movie and game rentals
Facebook: 3.6 million fans
Twitter: 250,000 followers
Mistake: Did not consult customer base BEFORE unilaterally changing service offerings and pricing.
IMPACT: Customers started leaving in protest, hurting Netflix stocks and revenue.
EVENTUALLY: Netflix reversed its changes after an apology.
2. CEO raises pricing, customers flee, makes a video, then apologizes and backtracks. Company: SmugMug
Business: Photo-sharing and photography e-commerce
Facebook: 102,000 fans
Twitter: 35,000 followers
MISTAKE: Did not consult customer base BEFORE unilaterally changing service offerings and pricing.
IMPACT: Customers packed up and left for other competitors, discovering along the alternative had better functionality anyways.
EVENTUALLY: SmugMug reversed its pricing strategy allowing subscribers with lower priced packages the ecommerce functionality as before.
3. CEO supports a political initiative, customers flee, then apologizes and backtracks. Company: GoDaddy
Business: Web domains and hosting services provider
Facebook: 173,000 fans
Twitter: 161,000 followers
MISTAKE: Did not consult customer base BEFORE coming out in support of a troublesome online piracy act.
IMPACT: Customers picked up and left for the competitor who offered special pricing to facilitate the exodus.
EVENTUALLY: GoDaddy reversed its stance and came out against the piracy act.
4. CEO changes terms of use, customers get furious, then apologizes and backtracks.
Company: Instagram
Business: Photo sharing social network
Facebook: 2.5 million+ fans
Twitter: 13 million+ followers
MISTAKE: Did not consult user community BEFORE changing privacy terms...
.....
Sorry, I promised to limit myself to 3 cases. But you are hopefully starting to see the pattern here?
The Solution - Change the "AFTER" to "BEFORE"
Companies are either oblivious to the room full of hundreds of thousands of loyal fans or just too terrified to engage this fan following in a meaningful way to shape their decisions and public stance on issues. Or perhaps just too lazy. Or arrogant. Whatever the cause, they are not communicating with their fans BEFORE making key decisions. Instead, they prefer the embarrassment of eating humble pie AFTER the harm is done and issuing apologies and begging for forgiveness.
These CEOs agree with my assertions. Instagram's CEO acknowledged "we failed to communicate". The CEO of Netflix went a step further in saying "I slid into arrogance".
Moral of the Story
Mr. CEO, go on your Twitter or Facebook page, shake hands with a few fans, sign a few autographs and listen to the hundreds of thousands of people who have something to tell you. Just LISTEN. There are tools available to help you with that.
Listen not once or twice. Listen for 30 minutes every day. Remember what the doctor said about a tweet a day?
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