Brands, listen up!
Posted by Anna | Filed under Blog, Thinking
I came across this post on the Made By Many blog yesterday and it made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. A brand who are actually using social media to listen to their consumers, to respond, engage and connect with them.
The story in short:
Simon I’Anson, of social digital agency Made By Many, has taken to tweeting about the goings on in the Bose electronics shop he overlooks from his work desk. Using #bosewatch to tag his tweets, he wrote about the seemingly mundane occurrences in the shop. One day, Simon received a phone call from the shop’s Assistant Manager. They had a nice chat. Simon was invited into the Bose shop for a further chat and a look round. Off he went. And he reported back only nice things.
This is a classic case of brands being active within the online community; listening to what people are saying about their brand and then reacting to it.
It opens up a communication channel between the brand and the potential audience and makes the end consumer feel as if they are important to the brand.
It’s personal.
Then, this morning, my father sends me an email to say that Glasses Direct have asked him to appear in their next TV ad. Naturally, I tweeted about this. Within a couple of minutes, @glasses_direct had sent me a message saying that they were looking forward to meeting him and how could they welcome him? I LOVE this level of service and consumer outreach!
Listen. Understand. Engage.
It’s a good model for other brands to follow.
On a side note, my esteemed other Shift F7-er, the lovely Dan, would like to disagree with me on this.
Dan says:
“There are two perspectives; brands engaging by pulling in users by creating an exciting promotion or strategy, and then there are brands, such as the ones you mentioned, who actively look for comments to respond to. I think there is a line… certain comments brands can and should be responding to, but others they shouldn’t, as it is effectively stalking. Some people don’t want brands to contact them about their comment as it is a mundane statement… others may.
So as a caveat, yes brands can do this, but as always it shouldn’t be abused as it could be seen as SPAM!”
What do YOU think?
Tags: Bose, Glasses Direct, Made By Many, Social Media, Twitter
3 Responses to “Brands, listen up!”
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David Carruthers Says:
November 13th, 2009 at 1:15 pmHey, @glasses_direct here.
I think Dan does have a point, and it is a fine line to walk. To be honest, I wasn’t sure how you’d respond to my initial tweet as it was a little out of the blue, but seeing as your twitter description mentions overhearing other people’s conversations I felt it was OK. :¬)
It’s taken a while for us to find our feet, tone etc on twitter but I’m pretty comfortable with where we are now.
To begin with we were too keen, randomly following anyone who mentioned glasses etc, and it was spammy. We quickly learned and adjusted.
Now I never follow anyone untill I’ve messaged them first, only message people who are talking about us. And generally I like to leave people with a smile on their face, or a deal in their pocket.
If it appears slightly stalky I also always explain how and why I came across their message.
We were name checked in a conference about twitter a while ago, and will be in the independent next week in a column on twitter so I think we’re on the right track. Not perfect, but on the right track.
I’m not sure anyone is better than zappos at this stuff though. http://twitter.zappos.com/
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Dan Says:
November 13th, 2009 at 1:51 pmThanks for your comment! I think we are on the same page.
The way in which you execute a strategy will define how successful it is.
Will look out for the Independent article, sounds exciting!
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uberVU - social comments Says:
November 16th, 2009 at 4:25 pmSocial comments and analytics for this post…
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