Relationshusetgekkos Blog

Har du overvejet, at der faktisk er forskel på at blive solgt noget og købe noget? Forskellen svarer til den mellem Push og Pull og markerer et skift i kundesynet, der driver de nye netværk og er ved at ændre forholdet mellem kunde og virksomhed for altid.

I den ene optik, Push/Salg, vil virksomhederne sælge dig noget, uagtet at du hverken har brug for det eller ønsker det. Sælgeren er en overtaler, en der skubber varer ud til kunderne, målet er salg og omsætning på den korte bane. I den anden optik gør man det muligt og interessant at købe noget. Man gør varerne så gode og værdifulde at de tiltrækker kunder. Salget er baseret på virksomhedens behov for at komme af med sine varer, mens købet er baseret på kundens behov for at blive hjulpet.

Reklamer vil helst sælge, men sjældent få mig til at købe. Den ‘gamle’ verdens reklame-skilte-skov i storbyer og supermarkeder er fatale eksempler på hvor kedeligt, uværdigt og ulideligt det hele bliver, når vi vil sælge, sælge, sælge i stedet for at lytte til kunderne og være til stede, der hvor de er, når de vil købe. Typo-Animation’s lille film om reklamernes sansebombardement viser med al tydelighed at reklamens rolle er, hvis ikke udspillet, så efterhånden så desperat, at virksomhederne skal til at revurdere deres relation til og skelnen mellem salg og køb, push og pull.

KAPITAAL from STUDIO SMACK on Vimeo.

De sociale medier vinder frem fordi de hovedsageligt er pull-orienterede og baserede på mine egne og mine venners frivillige medvirken og interesser. Det skal virksomhederne lære af, inden de går ud i de nye medier og sælger på livet løs. Det gælder om, mere end nogensinde, at skabe relationer til kunderne – på kundernes præmisser.

Før påske landende en rapport på mit bord. Rapporten hed “Forretningen Facebook” og omhandlede danskerne brug af Facebook samt deres holdning til virksomheders tilstedeværelse i selv samme. Rapporten havde flere konklusioner – bl.a. at de danske brugere var skeptiske over for virksomheders tilstedeværelse på Facebook (ja, der kan velsagtens drages en parallel til de sociale medier i al almindelighed).

Rapportens konklusioner er debatteret flere steder - og jeg vil da også bidrage med mit umiddelbare syn på sagen.

Egentlig kan jeg godt forstå at visse danske brugere kan have en vis portion skepsis over for virksomheder i de sociale medier. Mange virksomheder prøver forskellige ting af på ren fornemmelse. Det resulterer ofte i tiltag og tilstedeværelser, der ikke er til gavn for hverken virksomhed, bruger eller kunde. I visse tilfælde medfører dette endvidere, at brugerne skaber alternativer til virksomhedernes tilstedeværelser (eller mangel på samme). Facebook siden ”Sommersby” med over 89.000 medlemmer et godt eksempel. Siden er skabt og faciliteret af brugerne.

Har man som virksomhed i stedet gjort sit forarbejde ordentligt og opbygget de rette indsigter i målgrupperne, deres vaner og forskellige måder at involvere sig på – så kan sociale medier imidlertid være en kraftfuld og relationsskabende dimension at have med i sin pamflet af mere traditionelle medier som DM, PR, print, TV og web. Indsigter, der samtidig vil sikrer relevans hos den enkelte bruger eller kunde og øge den enkeltes lyst til at involvere sig, dele oplevelser med andre og rykke et stykke længere ned i købstragten.

For at sikre, at virksomhedens sociale medie-indsats har relevans hos brugerne og kunderne er det altså essentielt at få indsigt i kunderne og bruge denne indsigt rigtigt. Af samme årsag har vi opbygget en teknologi, der overvåger relevante aktiviteter i de sociale medier og hjælper vores kunder med at få indsigt i kunden, markedet og forretningen. Derved sikrer vi, at der bliver sat ind de rette steder med rette aktiviteter på rette tid. Derudover har vi udviklet mere end 20 forskellige ydelser af både taktisk og strategisk karakter, der kan hjælpe virksomheder med at komme flyvende fra start i de sociale medier (eller holde sig flyvende, hvis du allerede er i luften). Du kan læse og se lidt mere om nogle af de løsninger, vi har leveret for vores kunder her.

For at vende tilbage til, hvor jeg startede, så kan jeg altså godt tilslutte mig, at man som bruger eller kunde kan være skeptisk over for virksomheder i de sociale medier, der ikke har gjort forarbejdet ordentlig – sikret relevans og noget at komme efter. At sige, at de danske brugere ikke er interesserede i virksomheder i de sociale medier – kan jeg dog ikke tilslutte mig.

Nu ved jeg godt, at man ikke kan sammenligne det danske marked direkte med det amerikanske. Men jeg vil alligevel læne mig op af en undersøgelse, der har et par år på bagen. Denne undersøgelse viser modsat foromtalte rapport ”Forretningen Facebook” at hele 93 % af brugerne i de sociale medier faktisk også ønsker, at virksomheder er repræsenteret i en eller anden grad. Samme brugere giver i en opfølgende undersøgelse også udtryk for, at kan man knytte et bånd til virksomheden i de sociale medier – så er man også mere tilbøjeligt til at købe virksomhedens produkter og services.

Til slut vil jeg gentage mig selv og sige, at det alt sammen handler om relevans. Formår virksomhederne at give brugere og kunder underholdning og indhold jeg kan dele med andre, indsigt og kundskab i virksomhedens kultur, produkter og services samt specielle tilbud og rabatter – så vil jeg som bruger eller kunde gerne lege med.

Så danske virksomheder, kom ud af starthullerne! Bare husk at gøre jeres forarbejde ordentligt og sikre relevans hos brugere og kunder.

Jonas

Most older or larger companies today struggle with management educated and experienced through work in the paper-crazed 1980s and the tv-frenzied 1990s. The problem is not the people, but rather that they think the rules from back then still apply. They do not. There is a huge advantage in bringing them up to speed with terms like crowdsourcing, freemium, wordpress, tweets and so forth. But as most of you have already experienced, inspiring management or customers to leave their habitual thinking and adapt to the new laws of communication and business sometimes feels like teaching cats to swim.

Keep your boss in the dark – and catch all the light
A new strategy is needed: Keep your management, your boss, out of the loop, and wait for him to play out his own role, meanwhile you educate yourself and improve your skills in the new areas of communication. Then, as he is outdated , you are ready to present your vision of the company’s future. It is vital that your boss is not in any way inspired or informed about what you do. Thus we have compiled a list of nine things your boss should never know:

1. The experts are giving their knowledge away for free
Mitch Joel’s inspiring blog and podcast Six Pixels of Separation deals with many aspects of new media and marketing. Tune in on any of his hundreds of podcasts, including the Mediahacks, a conversation with several of the most interesting and inspiring people in new media in US and Canada, and experience how generous and amazing the online world is today. There are pearls on strings in abundance. Go to Mitch Joel’s amazing podcast Six Pixels of Separation

2. There are Tribes out there – following the leaders
Seth Godin has written many books, but Tribes describes the realm of the passionate content provider with such entusiasm and conviction, and you’ll never again doubt that we have indeed begun an era with new rules, new risks and new possibilities. Tribes is a must-read for any start up or any uninspired employee waiting for life to happen. Go to Seth Godin’s presentation of Tribes on TED

3. The next Goldrush is a few tweets away
Don’t tell him about Twitter Search. It sounds trivial, but try using the twitter search for half an hour and see what it gulps up on your favorite topics like communication, design, movies or dogs. Or… The most amazing this is that all your search results are contemporary, like a few minutes, hours or days old. They’re not from last year or so much 2008. They’re relevant and they’re something you can engage with here and now. If you dare. Go to Twitter

4. Passion is for the masses – in a new way
New media is not about mass communication. Rather it is about bringing the right content to the right people. Gary Vaynerchuk is a perfect example. He has build a huge community of wine lovers through new media: videos and tweets. He has backed his following by becoming a spokesperson for anyone who has a passion for a particular subject – and has recently published a book Crush it, which tells you how to build a business around your passion. Go to Gary Vaynerchuk’s website

5. Being well informed is no longer a subscription to Financial Times
Newspapers are dead. They might prolong their existence through iphone, Google Reader, Kindle or other reading environments, but essentially the old-school paper is not relevant any more. Only for building a fire and putting under your kid’s oil paint by number efforts. One of the leading figures in social media, Guy Kawasaki, has participated in the development of a genius service, which aggregates blogs on various subjects in one easy overview. Alltop is the sort of place you can get lost in exciting and relevant reading material on the exact subjects that interest you: Business, marketing, books, health, customer service. Go to Alltop’s collection on Customer Service

6. My friend played the guitar at his wedding – thanks to Youtube
Formal education is so much last millenium. Well, at least there are new and other ways of learning than sitting in an uncomfortable chair in an old building with people you don’t know, listening to a bored out of his skin teacher from another planet. Now, you can visit a website, search for a topic and learn about it – through people who are passionate about what they teach and who have experimented with new ways of telling the story. My old friend learned to play the guitar for his wedding by watching FREE videos on youtube. As he explained it to the guests, most of them did not understand what he meant. It is a paradigme shift of dimensions. Video and webinars are boooming, and if you are not already planning something on video, you are not being serious about communication. Go see a video about Social media in Plain English

7. Asking the customers is a daily event
Don’t tell your boss, but asking your customers how they feel and think and being in dialogue with your customers is not something best kept for the annual customer satisfaction survey. The days are gone, where opinions were only exchanged at the pace dictated by the company. Right now customers are satisfied or the opposite – and they express it on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Youtube, MySpace, Issuu. Get in all of these, monitor all media through Google Alerts and ask and talk to your customers now, rather than waiting for the big kahuna survey. Or pop frequent surveys by using an easy-to-use online survey service like Surveymonkey. Go to Surveymonkey

8. Apps are here to help us
One of the most amazing and underestimated things to come out of the late 00s were apps. Applications for computers and phones and portable devices, easily installed and for a fair price, if not free. Innovative companies have already found out how to use an app in their communication or customer service and have launched these through their website, Itunes App Store or both. In Denmark, where we are slowly adjusting to the world of apps, a cook book app from a Scandinavian dairy company has become the most downloaded app for iphone. The use for a cook book on your phone is obvious and the app is beautifully executed, simple but efficient. If you can, look out for your next app for your company, but don’t tell the boss. Go to Apple’s App Store

9. The best of times: All Good things are free
While your boss speaks of recession and financial crisis, don’t interrupt. Don’t tell him, that this is one of the most promising times and eras to be exploring business opportunities. He will not understand what you are babbling about. He won’t understand that the beauty of today’s internet culture is that many things are available at the price of almost nothing. Google has made a business out of providing you and I and millions of other users with free programs, services and applications. And many have either followed or have been providing free and/or cheap services for years. Some of the best free services today are: Issuu.com, Scribd.com, Changethis.com, Facebook.com, Twitter.com, Posterous.com, Wordpress.com, Vox.com, Ning.com, Youtube.com, Vimeo.com, Bitly.com, Spotify.com, Grooveshark.com, and many, many more. And of course – Google’s many services like Alerts, Docs, etc. Go to this blog to read more about Free (in Danish) – or go to Wired and Chris Anderson’s take on Free