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His post touches on two important, individualized factors influencing the time equation: company size (resource availability) and level of target customers’ social savvy (profile).

You think you know but you (probably) don’t

Assuming you’re not still trying to sell your boss on the concept of social media for business, you’ve either developed (and institutionalized) profiles for your brand’s primary and secondary targets, or you currently face the task. If your business has a web site (doh!), it’s quite possible the design process included persona development (highly recommended, or turn right back around and redesign); use those as a starting point forillustrating who your social consumers are. Because really, you need to know thatbefore you wonder about how often you can join their them and their friends on the playground.

Still haven’t found what you’re looking for?

Take care not to blindly assume personas that serve to represent web site users wholly match the social consumers your brand wishes to target. Diff’rent strokes, possibly diff’rent folks. Expect similarities between persona groups, but the mental state of social consumers following a digital path to your site’s door may very well:

• have different sets of tasks they wish to accomplish than the typical site-only visitor
• hold different perceptions about the brand image (so the information scent trail should presume a certain level of familiarity and follow a definite route)
• hold expectations of external validation in the forms of testimonials, customer reviews of products, Get Satisfaction, Yelp!, or other independent rating & resource properties
• Other variables, based off entering from a different node/outpost

In other words, social consumers – regardless of the platform used – who visit your web site may be of a different frame of mind than less socially active consumers visiting your web site. (We already suspect social consumers tend to spend more; the question you need to explore at what cost can that be achieved, and with what tradeoffs ((there are always tradeoffs)).

If you’re not conscious about this possibility and deliberately planning for it, then you risk message homogenization and loose opportunities to enable sales.

Brands should spend some time fleshing out the social personas to include data points like:

• Amount of annual online spend, by top categories
• Number of social networks currently active in
• Amount of time spent each day on those networks (via computer and handheld device)
• Ratio of personal to business use on those networks
• Participation in online reviews and ratings programs and social commerce sites
• Frequency with which they recommend or refer brands to friends, family, and peers

Remember the other half (three-fourths!)

You may also find Forrester’s Social Technographic’s Ladder helpful in segmenting customer types and building out personas. Just today a friend of mine – also a marketer, with a career that extends back into the “traditional media” days, commented “Social remains a take it/leave it entertainment and curiosity  layer for vast numbers of consumers – the very consumers that buy products and services every single day. Businesses looking to sell stuff will do well to remember the reality outside the bubble of pioneers and early adopters, and weigh their social media initiatives appropriately as part of a larger marketing and communications plan.”

Let’s get personal

Depending on your industry and how finely you wish to characterize customers, the data points that should be addressed by your personas could go on. There are probably other, more specialized criteria applicable to some niche or B2B categories that could be added. The point is to wade through the due diligence to deeply, intimately know your customers. The process probably involves also diving into sales histories or CRM systems, old-fashioned customer files, web session data like recordings and heat maps, focus groups, surveys, and (gasp!) having conversations with the sales staff, customer service folks, and anyone else who may have an opportunity to see a side of the customer. Only then will you be able to understand their values, lifestyle, and other unique drivers.

Only then does the question of “How much time should I spend?” become relevant.

Our favorite people are close to our hearts because of their blend of humor, perspective, intellect, carriage, grace, style, values, and energy. Their wit, intuition, drive, selflessness, curiosity, honesty, and dependability ebb and flow to create an array of dimensional prisims that help define our moments together and the things we experience.

Flawed as we humans are, we show each other both crystal-clear and occluded views. The occlusions are generally accepted because the moments of pure light – the pleasure we give others – is so bright as to cast shadow over our “meh” moments. We forgive the forgotten $20 bucks due because Joe didn’t mean to forget and to remind him would make him feel bad. He’s got some stuff going on right now, so why add to his problems?

In many ways brands (created and managed by those flawed people) demonstrate similar behavior. They give users good along with not-so-good experiences. But unlike those real-world, person-to-person relationships often forged in ways that create visceral, deeply emotional memories, brands are at a disadvantage. Brands are remote. They’re housed in concrete buildings or gated factories. They always look photo-ready. They’re buffered by complexity and mystique (just what are the 23 flavors in Dr. Pepper?). Brands are not as easily forgivable because well, there’s no bond. Brand personality (the specs in the official guide book) alone doesn’t forge one.

Humanize the brand to give users something to relate to. It’s more than a buzzword. Humanization closes the distance between your entity and my household.

It’s rare that a user can see a brand for the humans within and come to know all the Bobs and Kathys for their vulnerability and genuine personal appeal. If your brand personality doesn’t allow for a culture of customer and employee bonding opportunities, then you’ll be hard-pressed to find forgiveness when mistakes get made (and they will).

So the next time you face low net promoter scores, unfavorable customer feedback, or an uptick in online ire, consider these things:

• Are you creating the conditions for a habitat of happiness within your four walls?
• Are your employees empowered to make the kinds of decisions that immediately reduce or eliminate customer pain?
• Do your rigid procedures tie metaphorical hands, adding to the remote and cold perception of your brand?
• Do company leaders pontificate one thing during team meetings, but take a left turn when the rubber meets the road?
• Are informed, researched, and intelligent employee mistakes punished?
• Do you measure what matters most, or do you count what you can easily identify?

Humans want to be liked. Brands are in business to be liked by humans. Bridge the gap by acting like one.

The people that remain customers when you raise your price due to market factors, the increasing cost of raw material, the rise in the cost of logistics?  Those are your loyalists.  And when you resist passing along the “shared costs” or sheepishly explain why the “extra” whatever is temporarily unavailable, you’ll bring it back as soon as you can?  Those loyalists love you more for being real, and for knowing they’re suffering too.  You’re sharing, and bridging a gap.  What you provide them with is value, and sometimes value costs more than a cheap alternative.  The value is in your reliability, the confidence your wares/services bring to the user.  It’s in the emotional meaning tied up in making the choice.  The choice means they’re still in control, and they’re going with you.  There’s great responsibility in that.

The people that recommend your company to their friends looking for a great new job, the one they should escape to from their old crappy job?  Those are your evangelists.  Their reputation is on the line, and they thought of you.  Wow.  In the age of social currency, your brand is heavy coin.

Brand fans, loyalists, evangelists are an earned tribe, they are not hired. They’re not sponsored.

Buying your company’s product doesn’t make someone an evangelist any more than earning a paycheck from your company does.  Those are transactions.  What are you doing to tie in or bring out deeper meaning?  The irrational but oh-so-powerful kind?

Fans, loyalists, evangelists cannot be bought or leveraged.  They may endorse, but only because they believe in the brand so wholeheartedly that they’re thrilled to have an open mic and an official nod.  They’re ambassadors for your message and your product.

Evangelism may be earned when a brand evokes emotional responses on its way to creating consistent and memorable experiences – often passed down and passed around.  It’s earned when the brand delivers rational benefits as it delivers on relevancy.

I don’t care if we’re talking about a commodity like butter or a specialized service like small business tax consulting.

Give love, get love.  It happens in business, too.

Take care to empower everyone in your business – make every single person – responsible for delighting the customer.  Employees will do it because it’s expected, but more so because they can and want to, if its part of your culture (message+motions).   People inherently want to make a difference, so let them. Don’t restrict them with manuals and protocols and limitations on their “let me make you happy” power. When the brand essence pervades every choice made from the top down – when doing the right thing doesn’t net the hairy eyeball, then the folks that represent your brand will also live your brand.

And that can make all the difference.

We all know that customer testimonials are a primo tool leveraged within new business development initiatives. We like validation for our choices, and testimonials can be a low-key, non-invasive way to present a winning scenario that a prospect just might relate to (in whole or part) – whether it was due to similarities in budget, accelerated timing, market, customer base, etc. We want the same big win that the person offering the testimonial got.  We want to be successful, too.

I’m working hard to gather customer testimonials for Ovation as we add new clients. I wonder if succeeding these days is more difficult than in those past – maybe my peers are now required to confer with public information officers and legal departments first.  But another tool I’m trying to develop is our portfolio of case studies.  In my opinion, these are equally impressive as testimonials, more detailed, and in some ways less subjective in nature (of course, even case studies can be manipulated to some degree).  And there are fewer to no hoops to work through.

Case in point:  We have a new client with a consumer audience. The nature of their business requires the consumers spending some down time in one or two waiting areas. It’s expected that there be dog-eared, outdated reading material handy, and maybe even half-expected that there be cheesy cable television to help pass the time.

Ovation’s position is this – consumer-facing businesses need to accept that media consumption habits have changed and the outbound brand-shouting they’ve done for years needs to be laid to rest. While a consumer in your waiting area doesn’t necessarily equate to an engaged or even satisfied customer, it’s wise to make use of them being “in the moment.”  After all, they’re there, right?  They might not read your direct mail, but for now they’re in your office.  For as long as they sit there, you have the opportunity to reach them. Targeted, relevant messaging on a custom media channel like digital signage can make a difference in the minds of the consumer. I have one case study and the raw data from another survey to prove it.

Recognizing the importance consumer feedback can mean to the success of a digital signage program, we recommend (and sometimes even subsidize) writing a custom survey instrument (sometimes there are multiple survey variations) to gather insight from those exposed to the messaging/content. In one instance, the survey has been in the form of a card that’s completed, and in another it involved an electronic touch pad to pose questions and collect data.

Whether you offer testimonials, case studies, an open accessible list of references, or some other means by which a prospect can learn more from those who’ve already traveled the path doesn’t really matter.  The important thing is to offer something for them to chew on. Something for them to evaluate in a real-world context and consider comparatively with their own needs.  They’ll see themselves in that other guy’s shoes.  There are tons of ways to use and repurpose testimonial and case study gold, and of course MarketingProfs has some great ideas for you to incorporate.

I’m what many would call a loyal customer.  In the past eighteen years, I’ve purchased the same brand of vehicle (with the exception of one transgression in my youth).  Since footing my own rent and buying my own groceries, I’ve always bought the same brand of butter.  And I only buy one brand of tennis shoes (some folks call them “sneakers”).  Yes, I do buy private label goods of all sorts, but since I’ve relocated six times (not just “moved,” mind you, but different geographies) the availability of store-branded products varies.  What I really like and feel akin to, I stick with.  I guess you could say that I have this odd sort of pride associated with my loyalty to those products.  If analyzed, we’d likely find that my loyalty is born from an emotional connection to those brands.  My mother used Land O’Lakes, and so do I.  My husband and I only buy GM vehicles – they’re what has kept us comfortable and safe.  I’m not suggesting that other brands are inherently inferior – only that these are ones that I’ve made an authentic connection with, so hence my loyalty.

Consumers have a staggering array of options available to them in almost any product or service category.  Which to me is one of the very reasons why Know Thy Customer is so critical.

Only if you know your customer can you have a platform for relating to them.  If you can’t (or don’t) relate to them, then there’s most certainly someone else who will.  Take for instance the plethora of cell service providers – there’s like four in my tiny suburb town alone.  Gosh, banks are the same way – another four in the town of likely 3,000.  And most certainly – credit card companies.  If I go a day without getting at least two offers in the mail, then I know it’s Sunday.

In a time when offers from cell carriers and credit card companies abound, and consumers have their choice of offers, plans, rewards, options, wouldn’t it make sense to pay close attention to retention efforts in order to reduce churn?  We know the axiom about it costing more to gain new customers than to retain current ones.

Remember, I’m a loyal consumer.  I’ve had an account with several large credit companies since college.  I figure I’ve made them pretty tidy sums over the years.  Which is one of the reasons I’m irritated at Citi.  If I’m loyal to them, how come they can’t figure out that I already have their credit card?

Yes, folks.  I have a Citi account through XX financial institution.  I believe it’s been active for over ten years.  I use it at least once a month, if not a handful of times or more.  And each month, in addition to getting my statement, I receive a separate mailing – usually 3-4 days later – from the same institution offering me the opportunity for a Citi-backed card.  And to rub it in, I’ve been pre-approved for it.

It’s as if they didn’t know I was already there, in their database somewhere.  Surely it’s not that hard to perform a merge/purge of mailing list to account holders and figure out who NOT to mail to?  One, that’s a lot of extra renewable energy gone to waste producing the mailings (doubtful I’m the only gal out there this is happening to).  Two, that’s a lot of risk – what if someone with nefarious intentions got those offers and accepted them?  Three, it’s just plain insulting.  I thought we had a relationship.  I buy stuff I needed with their help, then I pay them back for the convenience.  I guess only one of us knew we were going steady.

I wonder if anyone at Citi has read Pete Blackshaw‘s book “Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000.”