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There's a lot of talk in the advertising industry of how big idea advertising is losing its importance. Rather everyday ideas, small and nimble ones that can activate consumers and influencers alike across the Internet seem to be getting as important. On our own internal social media email list, we've been having a raging debate on this too.
Now before you start slamming me for selling out, let me explain what I mean (and yes, I was inspired by this cartoon). As I've been discussing on this blog and in a series of papers over the last two years, social influence marketing is going mainstream. It is becoming fundamentally intertwined with the core of all things digital. As such it is getting more difficult to separate social media and social influence marketing from other digital activities. 
It really is time for brands to do more. Call it a desire for a better value exchange or building meaning for consumers or appvertising or think about in terms of brands doing more than forming emotional connections like supporting causes but the truth is that brands need to do more to become a part of our lives. We're tired of being a part of their worlds. That matters but our own worlds matter too and brands need to fit in more. 
Last week I was quoted in an Adweek article that discussed how large Fortune 100 companies are starting to hire new kinds of leaders to help them navigate the social media space. Talking about Ford, Intel and Pepsi, the article discussed the trend towards hiring social media czars that coordinate social media efforts across the organization within and beyond the marketing departments. I believe it is just a matter of time before most organizations either have dedicated roles like this or push their employees (or specially identified employees) to go through a social media boot camp of sorts. 
Life begins to get easier when others talk about a topic that you've been going hoarse evangelizing. In an interview in Fast Company, BJ Fogg discusses the power of Social Influence Marketing and why it is so new and important.Facebook is the precursor of something I'm calling mass interpersonal persuasion. That is a new phenomenon and the most important thing to happen in the world of persuasion since the advent of the radio over 100 years ago. Radio changed the game for persuasion because it allowed a message to be broadcast to thousands and millions of people, which was previously not possible. TV was an extension of that, but I don't think it was the big leap that radio was.
Facebook takes very strong interpersonal influence dynamics -- the way people persuade each other face-to-face in small groups with peer pressure, reciprocity, flattery -- and allows those to be used on a mass scale because your social networks are built in. Friends influence friends, who influence friends, and that keeps rippling out. They can reach people very quickly for very little cost and ordinary people can set these in motion. It doesn't require a big broadcasting company or a big PR campaign. If you get the right message in the right way, you'll effect millions of people. Facebook has been the best platform for that, but I think in the future it will be commonplace.
Read the full interview over at Fast Company. I briefly met BJ Fogg last year while speaking at a conference in Denmark and found him to be insightful. He understands persuasion better than most people and its great to learn that he's looking at it in the context of social influence too.
In a nutshell, Joe contends that brands need to view the digital world differently as consumers form opinions of your brand in milliseconds. If they don't like what they see, they can shut you out forever or worse still use social influence to hurt your brand by telling their friends and the rest of the world how boring you are. Here's the slide deck.
The most digital brands are Google, Apple, YouTube, Flickr and Netflix. These brands scored the highest when we measured them against atributes like immersion (how easy it is for a consumer to become engaged with your digital home), social (whether a consumer finds your brand worth sharing), and adaptive (how well a brand responds to a consumer’s digital environment), among other qualities. Interbrand's top brands are Coca Cola, Mercedes, General Electric, Nokia and Microsoft. Download the Brand Gene Scorecard.
Knowing how to tap into that social influence can be challenging for an auto manufacturer. Here are five tips for automakers as they attempt to harness the social influence.
1. Market to the peer influencers as well
Auto purchasing decisions are rarely made in isolation. Think hard about the spheres of influence both online and offline that affect a specific customer segment’s decision-making process and find ways to target those influencers as well. For example, if you’re selling a car to a college student, you can also promote the vehicle online (as a great college car) to the parents of the buyer.
2. Allow for the social influence to take place more naturally
A passionate customer’s relationship with an auto brand is never a private relationship. The customer invariably wants to showcase that relationship in some public form. Provide him or her with enough digital artifacts to do so. There’s memorabilia in the offline space, but what about memorabilia for a social network? Is it available on your website? And I don’t just mean screensavers.
3. Market to your current car owners more aggressively
Most auto manufacturers don’t do enough to harness the passions of current car owners. They’re your most valuable marketers as they strongly influence their peers. Find ways to keep them excited and engaged with the brand on an ongoing basis. Now with marketing through social media, this has finally gotten easier. Take advantage of it and give them more excuses to talk about your brand when they socialize online.
4. Redesign your website to allow for group purchasing decisions
Growing up, my father always made my mother, brother and me active stakeholders when he went shopping for a new car. We’d look at brochures together; visit car dealerships, debate over dinner and vote for our favorites. No auto manufacturer lets me take that experience online. Auto purchases invariably are group decisions, so provide customers with the tools to share information, debate (via social networks or otherwise) and make decisions as a group. You’ll win more customers.
5. Direct customers to third-party experts online
Web behavior has changed, whether you like it or not. Customers will hop between third-party review sites, social networks and competing auto manufacturer websites as they make the purchasing decisions. Instead of ignoring this behavior, embrace it. Point your site visitors to the most authoritative blogs and auto review sites and let those customers tag and catalog that information. They’ll become more informed buyers and you’ll build vital trust by pointing them to the right places. Don’t worry; they’ll come back to your site when they’re ready to buy.
Arguably, over the last few years auto manufacturers have taken some great strides in the social media domain. The challenge now is to lead the way in the next phase of social influence marketing. It’s when the auto manufacturers can truly go social and allow for those peer and anonymous influences to take place naturally. We’re all waiting to see who will do that first and how.
View other articles pertaining to Digital Automotive Trends on the Headlight Blog.
