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Many associations have been bitten by the social media bug and are now itching to learn more about this seemingly new communication form and mix it into their electronic media. Blogs, podcasts, YouTube, Facebook, and MySpace have added many new forms of information gathering and dissemination but what has fueled these communication vehicles and propelled them to massive use on the web are regular, ordinary citizens. In the book, “Citizen Marketers: When People Are the Message” the authors, Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell explain and illustrate how and why people use social media to influence products and services that are sold. Although their stories and examples throughout the book are all connected to consumer brands, products, movies, and music, the main idea in the book can be easily transferable to the association world: one-dimensional communication is over and passionate people have become involved in company operations via technology.
Participatory Governance
Huba and McConnell use the term, “citizen marketer”, because it resembles what a sound government should be: citizens that are very active in voicing concerns, correcting mistakes, and seeing that true justice is served. A true citizen is a highly involved citizen. True citizenship is a culture, with strong ideas, values, and a sense of what’s right and what’s wrong. The authors date this concept back a few thousand years to ancient Greece and the days of Aristotle. The authors relate how these true citizens of the past watched over the government to how a few concerned citizens of the present watch over products, services, and entertainment. These neo-citizens, as I like to call them, are altruistic with their time, ideas, suggestions, and efforts to change a course of action that a company or entertainer has chosen. These citizen marketers have a connection with a product or service that makes them feel part of its creation and evolution. They are highly-interested and affected individuals that share their thoughts via blogs, videos, campaigns, and other endeavors for the purpose of keeping this product or service around.
What Motivates Them
They don’t do it for money. They do the work because they are passionate about what the work contributes to. For example, Huba and McConnell describe how Casey Neistat, a devoted Apple product consumer, and his brother, protested Apple’s initial iPod battery replacement standard by making a video about it, releasing it on YouTube, and witnessing over a million-views of it six-weeks later. “iPod’s Dirty Secret” was talked about in more than 130 news outlets around the world and caused Apple to change its battery replacement policy. Another example from the book illustrates how Target tracked down an anonymous blogger who created an online community, “Slave to Target”, that is devoted to discussing Target products. This anonymous Target “fanatic” decided against using affiliate links because they were too cumbersome and apparently doesn’t make money from her blog even though about 100,000 people use her site per month which drives business to Target’s website and stores. However, this anonymous blogger was disappointed in Target since she believed that they seemed more concerned about her, than what the messages on the blog were. The point being that some companies fail to capture the informational power that social media produces and use it to their benefit.
The 1% Rule
The citizen marketer is a rare species though. The authors claim that 1% of the users of a blog or other social media actually create new content. They term it the “1% Rule” and it is an estimate. The 1% Rule illustrates how a few people can get very involved, so much involved that it can change the storyline of a major-motion picture. “Snakes on a Plane”, starring Samuel L. Jackson, created a buzz in some movie fan circles after a 26-year old law student started a blog devoted to the movie. Seven-months after its launch, his blog attracted 915,000 visitors and this community eventually crusaded to have more explicit scenes and language in the movie thus participating in the movie’s creation. It became a fan-director-screenwriter collaboration, rather than a one-dimensional, Hollywood driven film. It involved many others completely outside of the production enclave.
Citizen Marketers Benefiting Associations
What associations can gather from this book is that there are a small number of people out there who feel it important enough to spend his or her own time, and in many cases money, to become actively involved with an organization’s product or service. They can be critics or promoters but they want to voice their thoughts and feelings. These efforts are authentic and sincere, and these are the main ingredients in producing a successful blog or YouTube video. These creations are not big-budgeted, professionally done projects - that would kill their authenticity. These creators are not for top-down control but rather bottom-up governance.
The Search for Citizen Marketers
Associations looking for ways to capture this social media bug and have it start producing positive results should first search the Internet to learn if a blog, podcast, or video exists that is devoted to the association. It can embrace what is said on it and learn from it. Also, online communities, such as blogs, that discuss the association can be a good source of free data. If this is the case, association employees may want to become involved in these community discussions but they will want to eliminate any type of corporate-speak dialogue that is vague and uninformative, such as, “we cannot confirm nor deny those allegations.” This type of response has all compassion squeezed out of it and it will add more injury to the organization than if it did not say anything. Responses that are given in a sincere and interested manner work the best. If a blog doesn’t exist and the association wants to create one, make certain that there are few if any constraints because this stifles freedom and citizen marketers despise this.
Another “P” for the Marketing Mix
The book makes a great case to add another “P” into Marketing’s 4-P tradition, and that is Participation. Associations wanting to use or are using social media need to have participation from outside the organization to call its usage a success. And a way to bring about this success is to embrace the citizen marketers and the messages that they share.
Jackie Huba
Thanks for mentioning our book. Really like how you have translated them for association leaders.
May 18th, 2009 at 3:52 pmSteve Sedowski
I thoroughly enjoyed your book and learned a lot. “Creating Customer Evangelists” is on my reading list for June and I know that the information contained in this work will be just as good. Thank you for your time and effort that you have given to the subject of marketing.
May 21st, 2009 at 2:15 pm