From Mediapost:

“Claire Bennett, SVP/Advertising, Marketing and Media at American Express, threw down a gauntlet at the outset: digital, traditional, grassroots–it doesn’t matter if consumers don’t want it. Paraphrasing Einstein, she said any marketing fool can overwhelm consumers with meaningless information, but it takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.

Her message, delivered through a rundown on her own company’s efforts, was that the opposite direction means moving from intrusion to invitation. “Are you making something better for your customer or intruding on an experience they are having?” she asked, rhetorically. “We want to be invited in by the consumer: from transaction to relationship; from disrupting to empowering.”

Facilitating conversations, making people’s life better. Bingo.

We tend to value things by putting a price tag on it: The watch must be good because it costs $5,000. The Mercedes-Benz must be better because it’s more expensive than the VW. Applying the same method to relationships or connections seems laughable: What is the value of a friend? What is the value of a business connection?  

Unfortunately, Wall Street, many businesses and agencies try to value Social Networks just on a monetary basis. They see the overvaluation of Facebook as a reminder of the dotcom bubble and a warning sign that all this talk about Social Media and Conversational Marketing might just be that: talk. 

I agree: Facebook is not a $15 billion company. But, at the same time, I couldn’t care less. I’m not Mark Zuckerberg, I’m not an investor, shareholder, don’t really care if Facebook ever makes a profit. I don’t even care if Facebook survives the next two years, ends up to be another MySpace aka Advertising Network or thrives and prospers. But users care: Once they feel the sell-out, they’re moving on.

What I care about are changing behavior patterns: People don’t ask companies anymore to get them things, they ask their peers. People avoid advertising at any cost but they are open to valuable tools that facilitate their conversations. Facebook is one site where many of these changing behavior patterns manifest themselves. There are thousand others. And you can experience it outside of the digital space: In airplanes, at work, in pre-school, stuck in traffic.  

Debating the value of MySpace or Facebook might be an entertaining discussion. But it distracts us from the fact that people are changing. Relationships and connections are the real value of Social Networks. Not a Wall Street price tag. 

When you wake up at 3.30 am to catch an early flight (after 3 hours of sleep) and you spend the full flight reading a book, you know you have a winner in your hand. It’s not easy to keep social marketing/conversational marketing freaks and geeks thoroughly entertained while, at the same time, adding a new level of understanding and knowledge to my 100-social-media-blogs-daily-brainwashed mind. But Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff achieved this goal by writing the first new media bible titled “Groundswell”.

Targeted towards the marketing department at businesses, the insights won’t disappoint or bore the chin-stroking social media experts. Quite the opposite: “Groundswell” gives marketers enough reasons to listen to and join the conversation but warning them throughout the book to take it slowly and, in the spirit of “Meatball Sundae”,  adjust their social media strategy to their specific business and desired objectives.

The examples and case studies were fresh but I was hoping for an online extension of the book (Joseph Jaffe did a great job) and, even more important, all of us would have benefited from failure stories. There are many and we can all learn from them. But these are just constructive additions:

The writing, the case studies, tools you can use each day to evaluate your new marketing strategy and a first attempt at calculating the ROI for various media tactics should make you run out to the bookstore. Or just click here.

American Airlines is on everybody’s mind right now: Thousands of flights cancelled, more than 100,000 passenger stranded and millions of dollars lost.

How did AA react to this crisis?

Sure, they put up a link on the corporate site, summarizing the situation. Very White House press statement of them. The press statement from Gerard Arpey was uploaded on their YouTube page. They covered the bases. But did they join the conversation? 

Obviously not. 

Top-down statements might have been good enough a decade ago, today they just cause a shrug. CEO’s tend to apologize on a daily basis and links on sites to a press release are almost an insult to seething customers. Instead, American Airlines should have explained the situation in full: Why were the planes grounded? What is the benefit for the customer? How are they going to make sure this won’t happen again? Are they willing to accept that customers are so fed up with their product? How are they going to change it?

Encourage people to converse with American Airlines. Let them express their feelings. Passengers feel helpless when dealing with airlines. Give them a channel to communicate their feelings. 

And, most importantly, give the staff on the ground authority to treat people like they should be treated: If they have to spend the night, offer them luxury accomodations. If their flight is delayed, offer them a generous voucher for food and drinks. Give everyone affected a free flight within the US. People that had to stay overnight should receive a transcontinental flight. 

Currently, American Airlines is hiding and hoping another airlines will mess up and their mistakes will be forgotten. People don’t forget days of delays. They will talk about it. Write about it. Share it with others. American Airlines should consider the crisis as an opportunity. It’s not too late.

The breakup that comes out of nowhere. The cancellation of cabel service. The surprising resignation: The obvious signs were there, even outsiders could see the problems from far away. But people closest to the situation had no idea. They were surprised. Shocked.

Why do people and businesses have such a big problem hearing tough messages, aka the truth?

In surveys, conducted by Personnel Decisions International, managers seem to have skewed perceptions about their openness to challenging news. The results showed that managers often signal to their employees that they don’t want to hear bad news. In addition, many employees censor themselves. This broken communication model is hazardous to both parties: Bad news are not being communicated and positive ideas might be considered criticism. And not expressed.

Same is true for businesses.

Many businesses claim to listen but, ultimately, they just want to reinforce their own opinion. It’s not enough to just listen, you need to listen with an open mind. How?

First, admit that your business is a bad listener. You might have the best intentions but some of your actions (wittingly or not) just indicate to everyone that you don’t really listen.

Second, admit that it’s hard for you to take criticism. Believe me, it’s hard for everyone but criticism is the lifeline to your future success.

Third, it might be better if somebody else does the listening for you. Hire somebody you find trustworthy to listen to the conversation that’s happening out there. Somebody that doesn’t have a stake in your business. Somebody that didn’t pour his heart and soul into nurturing your business. Criticism doesn’t mean anything to them: They are not the ones being criticized. There are numerous companies out there listening to conversations all day long. (This fine one is one of them.)

And then it’s time for you to listen: Sit back and just listen. Don’t respond. Don’t react. Just listen. It might be the best thing you could ever do for your business.

Advertising used to be so easy: You write a cool tagline, develop a cool commercial, make sure all communications surrounding the commercial is integrated and then hope for the best. You worked for a great agency when you were thinking about the client goals throughout the creation process. You worked for a mediocre agency when everybody just cared about the awards and recognition. And you worked for a real crapshop when everybody was just thinking about their paycheck.

Ob boy, things have really changed. Now, agencies have to deliver experiences that improve people’s lives and, at the same time, make sure to help their clients with the bottom line. Thinking about awards shouldn’t even make the Top 10 list anymore.

In the old days, we tried to build emotional connections through funny 30-second sketches and innovative imagery. Today, we build emotional connections by helping people solve their problems: The widget displaying real-time traffic on your desktop, easing your commute and saving nanoseconds because you don’t have to type the URL. The Pizza Builder that makes the ordering process less arduous and so much more enjoyable. The Facebook CarPool application that helps people to connect with each other to reduce the their carbon footprint and get from A to B quicker.

The flashy ad doesn’t work anymore. People have moved on a while ago. Today, businesses build emotional connections  through utility. Make my life easier, more enjoyable, more experiential. Give me stories and memories to share, develop something special for me. Show that you understand me. Show that you don’t want to pollute my life with more noise. Show that you care about me. That’s how you develop connections and relationships.
And make people care about you.

The American culture is in love with nonconformity: Cowboys, Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) from ‘There will be blood’, Jesse Ventura, Ron Paul, Eliot Spitzer - the list is endless. The Milgram experiment illustrated the distrust towards authority:

“The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation.

Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.”

The eroding trust in authorities (Enron, Catholic church, Presidency, etc.) fed the hunger for long wolves. People that do what they need to do because they feel like it. Moral superiority belongs to the loners that create their own rules.

Not so, says David Berreby, author of “Us and Them: Understanding your Tribal Mind”.

In a NY Times piece, he explains that the psychologists Hodges and Geyser took a second look at the Milgram and Asch experiments and came to new conclusions:

“This means that the subjects in the most famous “people are sheep” experiments were not sheep at all - they were human beings who largely stuck to their guns, but now and then went along with the group. Why? Because in getting along with other people, most decent people know, as Hodges and Geyser put it, the “importance of cooperations, tact and social solidarity in situations that are tense or difficult.”

(…) Milgram’s “subjects were not simply obeying a leader, but responding to someone whose credentials and good faith they thought they could trust.” Without that kind of trust society would fall apart tomorrow, because most of what we know about the world comes to us from other people.”

David’s writing reminded me of Mark Earls’ “Herd” book, blog and overall thesis that it is our innate nature as “herd” animals that causes mass movements, not the influence of a handful of individuals.

The traditional church of marketing was built around the belief that humans are lone wolves that want to stand out from the crowd. The problem is that people have a tribal desire to follow the herd and be part of a group. Sure, there are instances when they want to stand out and be considered as lone wolves. But, the rest of the time, the same people want to be part of a group and just fit in.

To leverage the full power of Conversational Marketing, businesses have to change how they think about human/tribal behavior. The advent of Social Networks and Web 2.0 has shown us that humans want to stand out by fitting in. Social Media campaigns have to feed this primal human desire and help people to belong.

Did you hear the song that started to become a hit last year and turned into a monster hit in 2008? That song is played at every conference, Web 2.0 summit and social media meeting of the minds. Nobody knows the exact title but it goes like “Businesses have to stop talking and start doing”. I’m sure you’ve heard that song many, many times.

Most businesses interested in Social Media and Conversational Marketing remind me of people ordering fitness equipment through infomercials: They know they need to do something about their fitness and health. And they order stuff to start talking about really doing it. Yes, they open up the package, are so confused by the instructions that they stop doing anything. Just to continue watching infomercial, still talking about doing something.

People are opening up to the public more and more each and every day. They describe in detail their desires, needs, fears,  anxieties, hopes, etc., etc. Opportunity is growing each and every day for businesses to help these people, build more useful products that tap into these feelings. Have you bothered listening? People tell businesses what they want. Sometimes very clearly. Sometimes not that overt. But they are always telling you what they are feeling.

Business that listen will survive and prosper in this new marketing reality. They won’t see themselves as the hero anymore. Instead, they see people as the heroes and will do everything to expand their superpowers by giving them what they want.

It’ s not enough to think about doing anymore. It’s time to listen and start doing.

Everybody is talking about listening: Listen to your customers, listen to employees, listen to your intuition. Listening has become the new buzzword in the marketing world. The whole idea of Conversational Marketing/Social Media is based on the concept of listening. And listening can make or break your business. But if you don’t know how to listen, you might do more harm to your business than you ever imagined.

Remember the Simpsons Episode, ‘Oh Brother, Where Art Thou’? Homer meets his half-brother, Herb Powell, head honcho of the Powell Motors car company, who decides that Homer is the perfect match to design a car for the average American. Homer comes up with a concept that he markets as ‘powerful like a gorilla, yet soft and yielding like a Nerf ball’, featuring three horns that play ‘La Cucaracha’ and a sound-proof bubble dome for his kids. Powell Motors goes out of business shortly after.

Yes, Herb Powell, listened. But he didn’t listen actively.

No matter in what business you’re in, customers expect from brands to solve their problems. Allergy medicine solves the annoying hay fever problem. Cottonelle for Kids solves a potty training problem. Mac’s solve the virus problem. (At least, reducing it.) Cottonelle for Kids solved a common parenting problem because they asked the right questions. Asking people ‘What do you want?’ will get you nowhere. Asking people ‘Tell me about yourself and the common issues you’re facing on a daily basis.’ will get your creative juices going.

Suggestions by people should not be treated as requirements for the next phase of your product development. Instead, suggestions need to be regarded as problem reflections that you’re tasked to resolve. Does a parent really want a soundproof bubble for their kids while driving long distances? Or do they want ways to entertain their kids safely while they can focus on the drive and listen to radio at the same time?

Businesses need to structure their listening initiatives to ensure they suspend their own frame of reference and judgement while leaning forward and attentively engaging in a conversation. The advent of UGC, Social Networks and consumer participation clearly show that people are growing out of the passive consumption phase. Brands need to catch up quickly. Or they end up with below monstrosity.

Remember the 90’s? Portals were all the craze. Each site wanted to become a portal because advertising would pay for everything. Even the sushi lunches and ‘dress-up-your-cubicle-because-we-expect-you-to-work-24/7′ contests. When I hear discussions between media professionals about social networks, I’m reminded of pre-bubble times because everybody focuses on monetization. More importantly, everybody still believes that advertising will pay for everything.

Social Networks exist because people want to connect. They don’t exist to sell eyeballs to advertisers. The whole idea of inviting people into a walled garden will sound absurd in a few years. The Internet is like New York: eclectic, bizarre, fun, annoying, loud, inspiring, tiring. The moment you try to turn it into a gated community, you kill the essence of the Internet Experience.

The reason why we experience monetizing issues with Facebook and MySpace is the underlying paradigm of selling eyeballs. People that frequent social networks don’t see themselves as eyeballs. And they become very sensitive and defensive when they are treated that way. People don’t care about business models. Instead, they expect a useful experience from a social network. Not an interruptive content experience. Brands and Wall Street have to understand this monumental paradigm shift. (So forget about that Facebook IPO.)

Brands that consider social networks as fertile grounds to add value, connect and build relationships with people will succeed. Brands that see social networks as another opportunity to get eyeballs will fail. Miserably.