Digital Is More Than Just Words

Note: Screen Shot from What The Fuck Is My Social Media "Strategy"?

A couple days ago, I was on a call with someone who kept throwing out words like upload, connect, share, engage, tag, etc, etc. as their digital plan. I couldn't help but think, this person has just said so much without saying anything.  

Funny enough, the next day a colleague of mine shared this amazing site - What The Fuck Is My Social Media "Strategy".  Essentially, it takes the principle of selecting a few key verbs and nouns and puts them together to form smart sounding phrases, which seem like they're going to lead to spectacular change and magic for your digital execution, but in reality, they say nothing.

The ironic thing is that the digital world can be leveraged to do amazing things, but we need to stop using meaningless, generic phrases to articulate what we can learn from and do in the digital arena.

When it comes to all things digital, we need to, first, understand how it has influenced people's behaviour. Then, secondly, based on this change in behaviour, start to understand digital's impact on brands.

Digital's Influence on Behaviour:

Information, of all kinds, is more accessible than ever. We can communicate real-time with anyone, anywhere in the world, whenever we like. We are in control, and it's all because of the internet. In fact, I sometimes find it impossible to think that we ever lived without it.

This always-on environment has influenced people's consumer behaviour in 3 ways (I'm sure there are many more but I find these ones to be the most essential):

1. We are hungry for information and are ready to share information at any moment. In fact, the majority of millennials around the world consult 4 or more sources when choosing which product or service to purchase and 86% share their brand preferences online in conjunction with recommending products to friends and family (74%)
2. Our expectations are on the rise - we demand to be heard and responded to. We can look to the success of sites like the MyStarbucksIdea.com to understand that consumers expect to have a much closer and more participatory relationship with the brands they purchase.
3. The exchange between the consumer and the brand doesn't end at purchase. Like I've been talking about for over a year now, the days of the purchase funnel are long gone, and we need to start looking at the brand experience much more cyclically. In fact, according to a recent Harvard Business Review, Branding in The Digital Age, consumers are influenced more during the post-purchase phase of their brand experience than pre-purchase.

Digital's Impact on Brands:

As consumers engage more through digital platforms (i.e. mobile applications, Facebook, Google, Blogs, Twitter, Wikileaks, etc.), these behavioural changes will become more dominant, if they aren't already. Therefore, brands will need to adapt to remain relevant to their consumers sustaining long-term demand.

I believe the digital world, and the changing consumer behaviour, has impacted the way brands must behave in 3 ways:

1. To maintain trust in the brand, organizations need to be more transparent and open than ever before. This is where having a strong brand purpose comes in handy. A strong purpose will ensure consistency throughout the organization, which makes it easier to open itself up, as everyone is on the same page and talking the same language.
2. Brands must always be listening, learning and responding to their various stakeholders - this includes consumers, employees, shareholders, etc.  It's no longer acceptable to communicate  statements about the brand with no intention of responding to the audience. Brands should make listening a priority over pushing out statements. Brands need to listen to the discussions that are already happening about them. Learn from those discussions (i.e. what are we known for? what are we liked for? disliked for? what is true and what is not? what do our customers want to see more of from us? etc.).  Based on these learnings, the brand can finally communicate, not in a close-ended fashion, but in a responsive and engaging way to influence and perpetuate the dialogue in a way that further develops the brand.
3. Focus on delivering the brand promise everyday to new and existing customers.  Like I mentioned above, it's more influential to deliver on the promise post-purchase rather than spending the majority of your budget communicating it pre-purchase. Because at the rate of information exchange and consumers' willingness to recommend products they like and trust, your brand message will travel faster and with greater influence when coming from satisfied consumers. Oddly enough, it's through digital channels that the post-purchase influence can be delivered with extended brand experiences, etc. as I discussed in my post on the continued evolution of branding.

There are many tools brands can leverage to create digital experiences. There are social platforms, like Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, Blogs, etc; there are mobile applications and, how could we forget, websites, etc.  But before we start using these tools, we must realise the importance of choice. I highlight choice because it doesn't make sense to use all of these tools just for the sake of using them.  

Rather, we need to first decide on the role digital is going to play.  How is digital going to help satisfy your brand purpose and deliver on your promise?  After all, based on Landor's 2011 Trends report, we know that consumers want to be surprised and delighted in authentic and personal ways rather than through flashy and fancy gimmicks, indicating that everything we do must substantiate our purpose to be appreciated by consumers.

Once the role of digital is defined, we can begin to pick and choose the tools we feel will create the most impact by creating beneficial brand interactions that will add-value for our customers on a regular basis.

So, lets stop using meaningless, fancy words to sounds smart, and start being smart by understanding the impact digital has had on people's behaviour and use digital tools as a means to accomplish our brand purpose and further deliver the brand promise!