The customers are coming, and they’re networked!

An introduction to RETHINKING your marketing strategy and harnessing the power of Social Networks.

The internet has changed everything…again. Social Networks like Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, 43things, Myspace, and others are changing the way we, as consumers, relate to products, services, each other and ultimately our world. Those sites are made up of millions of individuals. Together, they represent a massive “community of ones.”

This community is changing the way that we, as businesses, will work in the future. Companies that adapt to the new marketplace and take advantage of the opportunity will prosper. Those that cling to the “way we’ve always done things” will face severe challenges.

True story: through an Amazon.com third-party merchant, I recently purchased a “Pea-in-the-Pod” baby bunting for my baby’s first Halloween costume. It’s a long story, and completely my fault… but the costume was sent to an address that, as far as USPS was concerned, didn’t exist.

Panicked that the outfit would be returned to sender and wouldn’t arrive before Halloween, I called the number on the Amazon merchant’s web site. I was on hold for more than an hour. I finally hung up.

Angry and frustrated (as only post-partum, first-time moms can be), I wrote a short, scathing review of the merchant and gave them a “Most Dissatisfied” rating on Amazon.com.

The next day, I got a call from Steve, the merchant’s customer service representative. He was adamant about making sure that I got my order on time. He offered to overnight the costume to me at no charge if I took my bad review off Amazon.com. Fair deal; the costume arrived as promised and the bad rating was deleted.

This illustrates something critically important: the community of ones pays close attention to what others say online about products and services.. What else would have prompted such a reaction from a customer service department that wouldn’t even answer its phone a day earlier?

People really are, finally, starting to “connect” on the Internet, exactly as predicted ten years ago.

You might be thinking, “Holy Cow. How can anyone please everyone all of the time?! There are crazy, unreasonable people who take advantage of situations like this for their own benefit! I’m sunk!” You might even want to hide under the covers until this Internet fad is gone and things are finally the “way they used to be.”

Get out from under the covers. Things won’t go backwards. Besides, there’s hope. There are ways to harness the power of this growing, unruly community of ones. ReTHINKING your marketing strategy, ReTHINKING your message and adapting traditional media, advertising and print to take advantage of these developments is the focus of the remaining five parts of this six part BLOG series.