Consumers, Social Media Tools, and Control

Posted by John H. Heinrichs


Jan 19

Consumers In Control

A Hamburgerfear has set in amongst businesses that consumers are now more “In Control” of the marketplace because of their ability to use and access to social media tools.  Plenty of companies and products have received negative feedback on their engagement, relationships, interaction, and their actual products. Many of these reviews are accurate and certainly some of these reviews are less than accurate. Nevertheless, a negative review or critique can still be seen by other consumers and influence the buying decisions of others. How businesses react to this situation is of critical importance to a company’s future success.

(Image by Rat2 (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons)

Whopper Ad Campaign

Several years ago, Burger King had a viral Ad campaign that generated significant traffic, sales, and chatter.  It all began when they threatened to discontinue the whopper, then video- taped customer responses.  The whole ordeal became quite comical but also revealed the power of consumer shock, outrage and emotional responses.  In reality, the Whopper was never going to be discontinued, but it sure did scare some folks.  As a result of the Ad campaign, web chatter about the Whopper increased 300%, sales increased by double digits, and the Ad campaign even won awards for how effective and creative the campaign was.  This Whopper freak out campaign showed the power of the consumer and the power of the consumer’s words.  However, is this word of mouth advertising or is it more than just that?

Word-of-mouth (WOM) advertising is a popular buzz word these days in the field of advertising and marketing.  I suggest that the Whopper freakout campaign was much more than just word of mouth.  I hear lots of information, stories, and jokes every week, all by word of mouth, but not all of these stories go viral across the country.  So what’s the difference?  Why do some stories end up getting shared via word of mouth and other stories get shared via word of mouth and end up as a headline on CNN?  The key to going viral is the tools that are being used.

Never before in our history have consumers had the tools to get their message out to the masses of people for free.

Improved Tool Usage

Are consumers tools or are we becoming better at using tools.  It would seem that with the right message, creativity, and large enough soap box anyone can get heard these days.  This is the key piece to effective social media marketing.  The whopper campaign went viral because it touched a nerve, it was funny, it was interesting, and people were naturally attracted to the story.  Never before in our history have consumers had the tools to get their message out to the masses of people for free.  There have always been advertisements in newspapers, radio, tv but all the messages going out to the people were controlled by the companies paying big dollars for those messages.  Now the people have the ability to send out the message.  This could be quite a scary time of change for any traditional big brand names or it could be a time unlike any other in our history where consumers do much of the marketing for us. 

Consumers have a new medium, a medium that they are just learning to use more efficiently and effectively.  Consumers are not the tool but they now have access to the tools to get a message out unlike ever before.  Anyone can talk in a back room and no one hears them talking.  Now we can put that same conversation up on You Tube, FaceBook or other social media sites and millions of people can view the message in hours.  The consumer used to be isolated and just one voice in loud stadium, now, its a whole different experience, because the consumer can talk in a stadium with a loud speaker and be heard by everyone. 

Empowered Consumers

Consumers have become empowered, they have gained more tools, the question becomes will they use them or not.  I can have a whole shed full of tools, but if I never use them I will never destroy something or I will never build something.  Tools can be used for either building or destroying.  This is where the fear sets in for the big companies because there are plenty of haters out there who are willing to post some nasty things about their company and their products.  The internet is turning out to be great for Capitalism and competition.  Now companies can’t just sell crap to the masses and hope to go undetected.  That crap will now be detected by consumer watch groups and angry customers.  Both of these groups are willing to become very vocal and loud about their negative experiences and make an effect on the buying behavior of other consumers, potentially driving them towards other brands. 

So the answer is no, consumers are not tools, but they have a lot of tools at their disposal to shape the world around them.  Will they learn to shape that world or will they let it shape them?  Will they be able to use those tools to help control their environment and force companies to be honest and forthright?  Or will they let the companies again control and spin the message without really changing the system.  Consumers, social media tools, control, and business are all intimately linked.

(All accolades and credit for this tremendous blog post are for Ryan LaRue who is the author and content creator.)

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