I don’t know about you but finding time away from “follow Us or Like Us” solicitations, emails, phone calls in the non stop world of engagement is refreshing and rewarding. I suspect that there are many others, if not millions, who feel the same way and soon brands will begin to hear a new message from consumers. The message will be: Leave us alone!
When did we ask brands to constantly solicit us with invitations to “like” them on Facebook? It is similar to a stranger in a mall walking up to you and asking you to stick a “Like Me” sticker on their clothing and sign it. Pretty soon the stranger looks like a fool and they are carrying a “Like Me” sign on them with your name on it like an endorsement.
What about the annoying request to take surveys calls from brands after we called for service? Just maybe the request for service ought to give them enough facts to figure out how to negate the need for the call.
Acting Social to Take Your Time & Money
Technology has empowered markets to get smarter because of the abundance of data about the markets behavior. Hungry to learn more about customer preferences, privileges, patterns, demographics and influences marketers are anxious to consume more and more of the consumers data for their purposes. While claiming their purposes are to create better experiences, personalized engagements seamless interactions and stronger relations their claims merely justify annoying tactics as a means to an end. The end is taking more of our time and money.
Participating in all these “engagement schemes” means opting in for more advertising, cluttering up an already-cluttered emails and irritating all the friends and associates who’ll soon get pitches from whatever brand you’ve “liked or followed.” Many assume that by “liking or following” brands they will get some kind of cash reward or notified of “special deals”. Just remember you are not a friend of the brand or a corporation and the aim of most, not all of them, is to engage you so they can take more of your time and money. How many real friends will remain your friend if all they did was take your time and money?
When The Customer Gets Smarter
The social web is still in its infancy. While the majority of the population is engaged in using it they are in the early stages of learning how to use it to effectively enhance their lives. Those who are leveraging technology for advancements are corporations and the majority of current uses have been in marketing and process automation. The explosive use of web technology is and continues to create a rich pool of data that creates more information, knowledge and wisdom that accelerates further advancements.
We’ve witnessed disruption in many markets because of the introduction and consumer adoption of technology that changed the game for the older players.The next stage of disruption will come when consumers get smarter and simply walk away from the “engagement games” that steal their time and money.
The value of an individuals time is the currency of the 21st century. Wasting people’s time or using tricks to steal their time to make more money selling them things they don’t want or need is a sure way to be “disliked”.
Creating interest in your brand is the result of giving them better than expected service prior to, during and after the sale. Sometimes the better than expected and social thing to do is to simply leave the customer alone and let them decide when to engage.