Your Customers: Cattle vs. Community

Image by CameliaTWU via Flickr

Everyone has the new Facebook on their mind, and while we’re thinking about what this means for marketers (which I’ll address in tomorrow’s post), I think the changes merely magnify much of what we’ve always been saying about Social Media for years, and how we should be using it.

Sadly, I think many will interpret the changes as a need to approach Social Media from a more traditional, outbound marketing kind of stance. This is wrong.

In this week’s video I address this issue, particularly in terms of how we treat our customers. I think we will see a lot of interesting things in the next few months as well try to adjust to the new newsfeed and Timeline. The times they are a’changin’!

If you can’t see the video in your email or feed, click here.

As I talked about our need to respect our customers and treat them well, I thought it was fitting that I wear my very bright “Walk in Love” t-shirt. Walk in Love is a local business that makes clothing with a positive message, and a portion of all profits are given to various charities. Check them out and buy their merchandise.

If you enjoyed this video, please subscribe to the Inkling Media YouTube Channel.

Why Doesn’t Social Media Work for Traditional B2B Marketers? Because They’re Traditional B2B Marketers. (hubspot.com)
Why You Won’t See “Target Audience” or “Drive Traffic” on this Blog (marijeanjaggers.com)
Facebook’s New Timeline and How to Activate it Now (inklingmedia.net)
Four Ways to Deal with your Dangerously Educated Client (spinsucks.com)
Get to Know Your Customers Better (inklingmedia.net)
On the Porch with Ken: Of Your Customers and Your Cup of Coffee (inklingmedia.net)

Tagged as: customer experience, customer service, facebook, on the porch with ken, Timeline, vlog, YouTube

HowieSPM 2336 pts

Love this post Ken. We all know Facebook only makes money selling ads. But the news they decided to track everyone now after they log out was the last ethical straw. So I just deactivated my account (can't close it another unethical thing about them) I have seen a lot of concern since this was not a Facebook announcement but some Hackers who exposed it. I have had discussions with others who seem not to care. But I am a true Opt In vs Opt Out champion and where Facebook has failed over and over is they should have pop up boxes detailing changes and allowing the Opt Out vs the news and uproars exposing things. They have been pushing beacon since they launched it and now it is back. I have a dummy account to run a client page so I can still stalk and critique and observe how brands use the site. But for now at least curious to see if it impacts my life at all.

As Chris Baccus my friend at ATT said the way to see if something will be missed is to turn it off. LOL

But my comment here is not to whine or bash Facebook for no reason. It dove tails with your Walk with Love post. Facebook views us as Cattle. And thus I left. And if clients and customers feel this with me or you or any vendor they will leave. They do it all the time. Cheers!

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KenMueller 1760 pts moderator

HowieSPM I've heard a lot of conflicting reports about the tracking, but I'm not worried about that, because any of that type of thing is done via cookies, etc, and I use multiple browsers for multiple things, and even have them set to clear cookies every time I close the browser. And my feeling is, Google has been doing this for years and is even more active in this, and yet we never really discuss this. Facebook can do all they want because a) I'm very careful what personal info I put on there, and b) I don't click on ads. Ever. Not on FB, not on Google, not on any website. I'm anti-ad.

But as to the topic of the post, it is imperative that we view our customers the way we would like to be viewed. I've seen businessmen treat their customers like crap, and then turn around and complain about the bad customer service they are getting from someone. Makes no sense!

KenMueller I am going to blog about the difference with Google, our Internet Service, etc tracking us. The difference to me is that Facebook has publicly said they sell everything about us including email and phone numbers. They also with the new changes are pushing for everything to be public. So that if I am reading an article off facebook my friends can see that. Google doesn't alert my friends who use Gmail what I am doing. Nor does my ISP. Now yes businesses have sold mailing lists forever. It is the social sharing so publicly that I am against. That was Beacon. If I bought a book on Amazon my friends will see this.

But on that note good luck Facebook. I am pretty sure if people turn on the sharing spout the flood of info will overwhelm and everything will be spam and clutter. And it will die as a network one day. They all do. Not just social. All networks die. Just a matter of when. And no company is too big as a whole or in its niche to close it's doors or die in significance see AOL, Yahoo, Woolworth, Netscape, Blockbuster, Sears, etc

My experiment can't hurt 8) I know a lot of people who aren't on Facebook and it is such a small part of our lives when you separate FB activity from your life even for the teens everyone talks about. They prefer SMS text. FB actually is best for adults who are not seeing all their friends every day in person.