The Engaged Consumer

The recently published FEED study - The Digital Brand Experience Report (by Razorfish) presents an analysis of the brand experience within the digital world and focuses much of its attention on social media. One of the central findings is that consumers "friend" brands on social networks because of deals and customer service, mostly egocentric motivations:

"Dell has earned kudos from social media mavens for generating $3 million in sales from its Dell Outlet through Twitter. Starbucks has soared to the top of Facebook brand pages, with nearly 4 million friends, by offering fans coupons for free pastries and ice cream. And Whole Foods tops Twitter with 1.5 million followers by broadcasting weekly specials and shopping tips."

 While it's difficult to disagree with these data, I think there is more to learn behind the numbers. It would be easy for a marketer to point at these examples and shrug, saying "well, consumers are selfish, I guess. This is the only way to get them to have a relationship with us." Enter a deluge of ads, giveaways, and coupons into social media.

But are marketers responding to consumers, or is it the other way around? Going deeper - if we asked consumers if marketers are selfish, what would they say?

The great thing about digital and social media is that it offers new tools that enable a brand to be less selfish, where more traditional means of marketing have the selfishness baked in and as a marketer you have no choice. But make no mistake, just because you CAN be less selfish within social media doesn't mean you will be.

Measuring yourself on revenue driven, fans, or followers alone (which incidentally, I don't believe Dell, Whole Foods, or Starbucks are doing in reality) is an indicator that you might be focusing on the wrong thing and leaving much of potential that social media has to change the nature of your relationship with consumers on the table. These metrics are intrinsically selfish, whereas other metrics like like net promoter score, brand affinity, and plain-old customer satisfaction are a little more consumer-centric.

Beyond these measures, it's important to focus on how your marketing trains consumers. What is the nature of your relationship?

Is your relationship the same transactional one that TV spots and Flash-laden websites got you?

Did you get all those fans because you gave them free stuff and novelties?

Or is it something different, where that commercial relationship has become more personal? Did you instead get those fans because of what you represent, and because those fans recruited themselves and others?

Everything you do to your current and potential customers helps them understand how you want to be treated by them, and what to expect from you in the future. If they are treating you selfishly, it's probably because you (or someone like you - a competitor?) did it first. The good news is it doesn't have to be that way anymore.

Photo via the Melle Music blog