A friend called me last night and queried if I’d been a little harsh on brands in relation to my comments in the previous post - “Scarcity, value & the nature of attention“.
So I had a look and, well, I don’t think I am.
To begin to substantiate that, look to the recently released TNG / Cymfony report (which I covered here). One result I didn’t specifically mention then - but which has relevance here - is the second most popular choice to the question “what social media resource will have the greatest future impact on your business”. 62% elected viral campaigns that … “encourage consumers to tell their friends and relatives about your company, product or service.”
There’s nothing wrong with this (it’s a legitimate social media marketing tactic) - but - it’s quick, short-term, campaign-based work that (mostly) seeks to foster some kind of word-of-mouth dissemination underpinned by peer-to-peer endorsement & advocacy. Fine, but my concern is that this speaks only to the standard marketing lexicon of “Awareness, Intent, Desire & Action”. It’s about being interested in getting ‘attention’ up to the point-of-purchase.
What I don’t see a lot of are brands seeking to consider the ‘attention’ available after the point-of-purchase. No, I’m not talking about customer service options here, but about understanding and working to secure - and enter into - a longer term engagement with those very same customers.
I know I’m making some fairly large generalisations here, but if we all agree with the initial premise that “attention is scare and liable to get scarcer”, then why should any brand not want to identify and leverage all available ‘attention’ options? Why would they be happy to allow a customers attention to dissipate after they may have worked so hard to acquire it in the first place?
As an example, I recently attended the TFM&A show. Here, a number of companies were confident in their assertions of running successful campaigns for brands that generated “55 friends for social network ‘X’ and 200 bookmarked referrals from news aggregation site ‘Y’” but - when asked - there was little suggestion of there being a “what happens next / longer term engagement / extended value across customer lifetime” plan to work to.
I think this places us within the whole control Vs participation issue that brands are currently confronting. I also know from the same report, that lots of companies are still ‘dipping their toes in the water’ but perhaps until they can get over both hurdles they won’t be able to understand what type of ‘attentions’ they should be seeking to secure.
Any examples of post-purchase social media engagement gratefully received …
Share this article from St. Paul's Reach