Gobsmacked By E-Consultancy’s Social Media Report!

By November 27 2008, 3:32 pm 2 Comments
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Brand Republic’s DB just popped into my inbox and the headline – Firms to spend more on social media – caught my eye.


 


A report by E-Consultancy and cScape on customer engagement has established that because of the economic downturn:


 


51% of business want to engage with customers more


 


But 45% have NO defined strategy


 


41% are thinking of using user ratings & feedback


 


37% are toying with user-generated content


 


36% might start blogging


 


And 7% say they have found some success with Twitter


 


Incredibly: “Sensitivity to price, focus on quality and desire for simplicity are the types of customer behaviour which responding organisations believe will be most significant to them during 2009.”


 


What on earth is going on?


 


Why does it take a financial crisis, the like of which we’ve probably never seen before, to wake business owners up to the fact that listening to and talking to customers is first rung on the ladder to success?


 


As a consumer, when did you last desire or go for the most expensive, shoddily made and complicated to operate product or service?


 


Why has the need to tighten budgets and be more fiscally responsible suddenly given rise the genius strategy of making it easier for customers to communicate more easily with the companies they’re thinking of buying from?


 


Does it really take the threat of cash-strapped consumers using their back buttons for marketing departments to decide on a dialogue to entice them back into the mall?


 


Come and see me present next Tuesday at The Online Information Show at Olympia on Helping Advertisers Help Themselves Through Blogs & Social Media!


 


I’ll give you some ideas on your approach and show how we’ve been in a successful dialogue with customers through www.adCenterCommunity.com for years!


 


I’m so flabbergasted I’m going to have to sign off now and go and lie down!

  • Ed Richardson

    Well sadly I think it does, when times are easy many don’t try hard enough and now everyone is paying for it.

    This must have been the “rant” you were talking about.

    I agree, but I don’t think the complacency is just in marketing and customer engagement. It was everywhere, businesses were taking their customers for granted sadly. Equally, I think consumers were taking easy money for granted.

    Hopefully this current crisis will focus everyone’s minds a little. Consumers will look for a better deal and the big brands will need to try hard to keep their customers.

    As I and many others have been saying for a while, the current recession we are in could be the test that some agencies have been waiting to rise to, particularly digital agencies.

    Couple the timing with the Olympics in 2012 and I believe we have a very interesting market ahead of us over the next few years.

  • robert lee wing

    a

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