Final steps to master groundswell thinking

Listening, talking, engaging and then supporting – these are four initial strategies to tap into the groundswell. What comes next? Li and Bernoff say it is embracing customers by making them “an integral part of the way you innovate” (Li, Bernoff, p. 183). It means that for the successful marketing companies should incorporate customer-centric innovation in the product or service development. It can be done in a variety of ways, for example, by creating communities and focus groups, asking questions, conducting surveys and setting ratings and reviews. Well, that's customer engaging, you would argue. However, this time companies should "act on the suggestions" and make improvements to show the clients that their voices have power (Li, Bernoff, p. 188).

As we already know from the previous chapters, surveys may be a good way to get customer insight, however, respondents are constrained with only those questions that are given to them. While sometimes brands may not even think to ask something that bothers their clients. Consequently, it is more effective to generate ideas within a community as DHL, the leader in the logistics industry, once did. By acknowledging the fact that customers know better what is wrong with delivery service and how it can be fixed, DHL brings most enthusiastic of them together in special innovation centers where the company hosts workshops to make solutions for the improvements. Such co-creation has resulted in multiple inventions, one of which is Parcelcopter, a drone that may be integrated into the logistics chain.

Whereas this is a compelling example of how customer-driven ideas can also add valuable perspective to the innovation process, companies may appear to be sceptical towards the collaboration with customers mainly because of the possibility of losing total control over product development. However, it is companies' knowledge that help to sort through those suggestions and identify which of them are worth being brought to life. Again, customers "do not tell what to do", they suggest from their own standpoint, while it is still CEOs' responsibility to push their companies forward (Li, Bernoff, p. 194).

The chapters proceed with the ways Twitter can be used for all groundswell objectives, and one of them is energizing. (Li, Bernoff, p. 204). Basically, it means making your followers talk about you, and the most steady way to do this is to create the content that will go viral and gain a lot of retweets and mentions. KFC's "11 Herbs and Spices" social media campaign serves as a brilliant example of boosting a buzz around the brand. In a nutshell, KFC silently followed 5 Spice Girls and 6 guys named Herb and waited until someone would notice this and figure out the chain's secret recipe.

The single tweet that gained several hundred thousands of retweets cost KFC nothing but it brought not less results than the traditional marketing campaings would. It is also interesting to observe how other fast-food chains use Twitter as part of their social media activities. For example, Wendy's constantly mocks McDonald's which makes their followers think that the brand is on fire and it is worth being retweeted. Probably it is not the most ethical way to boost brand awareness but it's catch-as-catch-can in a harsh competitive environment.
 

Accidental tweet of placeholder copy couldn't be overlooked by Wendy's

Up to this point we defined the groundswell as customers' activity online, however, it is crucial to remember that employees are also considered to be primary stakeholders, thus, they are a part of brand's groundswell as well. The key point is to build sustainable relationship with them which can be done by applying the same groundswell objectives discussed before (Li, Bernoff, p. 237). It should be done step-by-step, "building solid foundation for every strategy" (Li, Bernoff, p. 217). When it gradually comes to energizing the voices of the most enthusiastic employees shoud be amplified who could then spread a word among others and actually make significant changes within the enterprise (Li, Bernoff, p. 230). Also it is worth mentioning that while all the revolutionary processes should always start bottom-up, there should be some kind of executive push and cover from the top (Li, Bernoff, p. 229). Therefore, any company needs transformational leaders who, in comparison to transactional leaders, would take it to the more advanced level of performance as well make other employees feel recharged and energized.

That's it - no more reading reflection posts. Do you, guys, feel a little bit relieved? I am sure we all did a great job and learned a lot about social media marketing from the book. Honestly, before taking the class I had thought that SMM is just about promoting products online, but then came this mysterious word "groundswell" and now I hope I got the point.

What about you? Based on everything that you've learned, let me know in the comments how you would define SMM in a couple of sentences!