There’s a bit of a digital divide in the Webbed Marketing offices- those of us who grew up learning to make phone calls on rotary dials use the term “cell phone” or, if we’re feeling pretentious, “my mobile.”. Those in the younger demographic just say “my phone” and don’t feel the need to add the “cell” or “mobile” modifier. Maybe the phrase “cell phone” is going the route of “digital alarm clock.”
That is, there is an assumption with the workers coming into the ranks now that certain technologies are just part of life. There aren’t cell phones, just phones. There isn’t social media, there is just media. There aren’t online influencers, just influencers.
And of course I can Tweet anything I want.
I would not want to be an intellectual property attorney in the age of YouTube, AdWords, Twitter and all the other forms of online communication that allow consumers to produce content about a brand faster than you can say “cease and desist.” An army of lawyers for Coke could not chase down everyone who has made the “Mentos/Diet Coke” videos. Whether you are Apple, Honda, or the guy that owns a pool cleaning business, there are three truths to the relationship between consumers and your brand:
- There are more of them than there are of you. At least, there sure as heck better be. Even if you have global team of marketers, you are simply outnumbered. The more consumers who love, hate or simply use your product, the more content they create about you online.
- They are faster than you are. If a consumer has a bad experience with your bank, they can blog about it, right now. If your bank wants to respond to the blog post, your marketing writer puts together a response, the marketing VP edits it, your compliance guy approves it and your IT guy tells you he ain’t opening up access to Blogger.com for you to post it anyway. This weekend I was at Kings Island and several times I heard people leaving rides or haunted houses saying, “I’m going to Tweet about that.”
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They are more trusted than you are. Consider this; you want to lose 20 pounds. You can get all kinds of information from various Web sites telling you how great this exercise program is, and that diet is. The brands simply don’t carry credibility with you. Now go search Technorati on the term “PX90” and take a look at all the highly credible bloggers, not to mention real people, saying good things. Who are you more likely to believe?
So aside from volume, speed and credibility, consumers really don’t have much of an edge over brands.
This has all been a very long and winding road to my original inspiration for this blog post. Several team members have attended webinars recently. When they received a follow up e-mail from the webinar, there was a note at the bottom saying the webinar content was specifically for attendees and should not be Tweeted or posted to a social network. I’m still waiting to see the first privacy notice on the bottom of an e-mail saying the contents of an e-mail are meant for the sender only and should not be Tweeted. Will more brands feel the need to expand their existing confidentiality and privacy statements to included social media? Is it necessary? Even if it’s necessary, is it effective?
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