Staying on Top of Brand Perception in a 24/7 World

Photo credit: eBay

In a digital environment, communication never ceases. Traditional 9-to-5 business hours are a thing of the past, particularly when it comes to marketing products and services. It’s not a matter any longer of announcing benefits and solutions through advertising and marketing collateral – the public expects a fluid two-way conversation that meets its needs and addresses any issues it may have.

While we may well have always relied on the advice and recommendations from our friends and neighbors in our communities, technology has allowed that community to expand and yet become readily available to communicate with as well. Whether it’s through message boards, social media platforms or simply outreach via email to our connections, there is an opportunity to quickly find answers, make a complaint or look for justice when one feels slighted in some capacity – and quite publicly, too.

Credit: Spacecoast Business Magazine

Consider the communication in the graphic to the left (click image to enlarge for ease in reading). A person asks a simple question, looking for a recommendation for a good plumber. Within that exchange, she quickly learns of someone considered reputable and a plumbing contractor to stay away from. If this exchange is on a platform, such as Facebook, depending on the privacy settings, this query and the associated feedback can be seen by a small number of people or everyone associated with the individuals in the conversation. While both the recommendation and the warning come from single individuals, think of how their messages can amplify throughout a social channel. Then think about what anyone in this conversation might say when asked anywhere else about a plumber recommendation. Whether they experienced poor service with the contractor that someone issued a warning about won’t matter. Most likely they’ll also replicate that same warning going forward, as well as the recommendation.

While there has always been an opportunity for praise or warnings as it relates to a service or product a business provides, digital communication allows each to travel far faster and farther than ever before. “What just a few years ago was unchartered and unproven in terms of its impact on business, is now a differentiating factor that can determine a company’s success or failure” (Field, 2013, para. 2).

So as marketing/communication professionals, there are three important factors to consider:

1. “Customer service is always on…you have to address problems as fast as you can” (Agrawal, 2016, para. 3, 5).
2. “A level playing field…due to the way customer behaviors have shifted, it’s now easier than ever to hit your target audience” (Agrawal, 2016, para. 6).
3. “Pay to play is coming back (and it’s cheap)…social media channels, pioneered by Facebook have brought back the idea of paying to play…you have to dedicated a small budget to reaching people via social media” (Agrawal, 2016, para. 11).

While the digital age may feel more complicated to those in the communication field, in many ways it becomes far easier for any organization to stay on top of what the public feels about its brand, to harness the power of public enthusiasm and dispel potential issues – and work some magic through the diverse mediums now available.

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References

Agrawal, A. (2016, February 15). How the digital age has changed marketing channels forever. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/ajagrawal/2016/02/15/how-the-digital-age-has-changed-marketing-channels-forever/#682557d65e30 

Field, J. (2013, April 26). How the digital revolution has changed marketing - Spacecoast Business Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.spacecoastbusiness.com/how-the-digital-revolution-has-changed-marketing/