“Double, Double”, she says. Seth Godin just posted about a woman he observed while he was standing in line in a strange town to buy a tea.

He noted that the Barrista stares blankly, not understanding the request. The woman repeats it, louder.

Seth reflects and says, “Sometimes, we get hung up on catch phrases and jargon that work great when everyone understands what we mean, but fail to bring understanding to outsiders.”.

Isn’t that, however, the power of a brand and the way brand association is propagated? When I first heard the term “Grande Mocha”, I didn’t understand it so I had to ask about it. Now I know it as a Starbucks product.

“Double, Double” has become a brand. It is a Tim Horton’s coffee (yes, with double sugar, double cream). The remarkable part is that it is a 100% consumer generated brand. Unlike the “Grande Mocha”, Tim Horton’s has never uttered the term.

The brand is so powerful in Eastern Canada (and Atlantic Canada, in particular) that it has transcended the brand “coffee” just like Kleenex has come to mean “tissue”, regardless of the brand. The community owns it and they are fiercely loyal.

“Can you pick me up a large Double, Double?”, is readily understood even by Barristas (a European term which, arguably, is a catch phrase made popular in America by Starbucks).

The Double, Double is so deep, it is a cultural icon. If one of our soldiers currently serving in Afghanistan said, “I can’t wait to order a Double, Double”, you would know he was expressing his longing to be back home.

Eh?

In the post, he lists the top 10 reasons for reasons for paying attention to what’s being said in social media. I like how David identified several types of engagement opportunities for companies that apply to various business functions within a company (i.e. online complaints -> for customer service, listening for point of need -> sales opportunities, influencer engagement or crisis management -> for PR, brand audit -> for the online marketer, etc.). It makes you realize that social media is not just the domain of a single professional or department; it is a new communications channel much like the telephone or email. It will ultimately be used by multiple functions and professionals within a company.

David’s blog is TweetPR

The powerful thing about online marketing is that people are increasingly expressing needs and opinions online. As an online marketer you can easily listen for specific conversations about your product or brand where people are expressing needs. Then you can engage at the customer’s expressed point of need.

To illustrate my point, here are some examples that I selected randomly of people expressing needs or asking questions in the past 24 hours using twitter (I don’t know any of these people). All of these posts on twitter are opportunities for a company to respond and be helpful. Add to that blogs, videos, images, social networks, micromedia and there are ample opportunities to listen for the point of need.

Customer support opportunities from questions mentioning Techcrunch, AT&T, Canon, coComment, Paypal, United Airlines:

Stevie_Knight: Does anyone know how 2 contact support @ techcrunch.com? I’ve been trying 2 register 4 the forums & haven’t received confirm.

Kichigai: Can anyone tell me if they’re having a problem with AT&T’s data services in South Jersey, or is it just me?

alisonedward11: does anyone know anything about canon warranties?

janelowe: does anyone know if there’s a problem with coComment - it goes weird when I try to submit a comment!

tthomas906: Last night up until 2 am trying to get my website up and running. Having problems with Paypal. I don’t know whats up with them? costing $

leanda: just wrote a list of all the problems we had we United Airlines last week, sending to insurance, UA and Expedia. Will try to avoid flying UA

Sales opportunities for companies such as Adobe, The W Hotel in San Diego, Mazda, Volkswagen, a computer manufacturer like Dell Computer or Apple, a pet store or dog breeder, a bicycle shop, etc.

jbruin: can anyone hook with me up with a discounted rate at the W San Diego? thinking about booking a room for tomorrow

dawrobel: Looking to buy a new computer…

naples: looking to buy adobe professional and other software

scarletdivision: Does anyone know where I can find a Brian Griffin dog? I really want a Brian Griffin dog.

intldiplomat: Does anyone know of businesses in augusta ga that sell refurbished bicycles?

ColinFBarnes: Can anyone point me in the direction for a nice sounding mac podcast mic/mixer setup for around $200?

Peter_BNC: looking to buy a jetta!

JonHenke: I start looking to buy a car (probably an RX8) next weekend. Huzzah! Now, to find a good deal on one.

Meet them at their point of need.

The experience we had in the store reminded me of the importance of listening and meeting people at their point of need which I wrote about in an earlier post. It re-enforced a bunch of ideas about listening/watching, building rapport and then engaging at the right time and for the right reason. In this experience, three different sales clerks approached us, but only one made a sale.

We walked into the store to look around around. We were just browsing. The first sales clerk approaches us and asks, “May I help you with anything?” The response was expected, “No, we are just looking around.” He leaves us alone.

A few minutes later, we walk into a shoe section and another clerk interrupts us with the same question. I wondered if a better question would have been, “Hi, how are you today? Are you in town for the tournament?” A less transactional question might have at least worked to build rapport and would still have drew out a need if we had one. Our reply was unchanged, “No, we are just looking around.”

Then one of the boys reminds his father that he will need a new pair of soccer cleats this year. They were on sale. Dad seems to be open to the idea so his son starts grabbing a few models off the shelf. Suddenly, we start exhibiting some potential buying behavior as shoes are being taken off the shelves, passed around, examined, replaced, etc.

That is when a third clerk keenly observes the signals that declared a point of need. The boy’s father stands up with the shoe his hand and looks around. Immediately, the sales clerk who had been hovering in the area jumps in to respond and simply says, “Hi there!” He knows there is a need. He reaches out his hand and grabs the shoe as the boy’s father says, “Can we get this in a larger size?”

The clerk returns. The sale is complete. The clerk writes his number on the box to claim the commission then hands his customer the shoes and says, “Thank You”. Smart guy. The first two clerks were interrupting. The third was being helpful. What was the difference?

The third clerk was listening & watching for the point of need and got the timing exactly right.

Do you think the same thing is possible online?

“Hey Comcast, the internet is really slow this morning, can you guys please give me a call?

He knows that Comcast is listening and answers their “Social Phone”

Is Social Media becoming a new customer support channel? Absolutely, it is.

Some companies have already jumped in and others are just beginning to recognize that the social phones are ringing. In time, I believe it will become a standard practice. Remember when customer support via email was first introduced? It was a harder transition that one might think, especially for larger companies.

There are major differences here, however. Adding email to the customer service mix was just another technology or mechanism by which companies could have private conversations with their customers. This is not the case with the Social Phone. These conversations are public, and that changes everything.

It also flips something else upside down: businesses now line up for customers instead of customers lining up for businesses. Rather than asking customers to do the searching, to find the businesses, to initiate contact, to get in line (or call center queues, etc.), it reverses everything and puts the onus on businesses to listen and respond to customers wherever they are. It is quite revolutionary when you think about it.

Companies who choose to jump in early will benefit the most. Right now, this practice is remarkable. It gets noticed and gets talked about. It represents an opportunity to delight customers with remarkable service. Michael Arrington asked Comcast,

“is this kind of customer service really scalable? i wish it was. you could double my bill and I’d be very happy.”

Meet your customers at their point of need.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this. How fast do you think this adoption will happen? What are the major issues that companies are likely to encounter as they wade in?

Please check out the full article, “Will The Real Social Media Expert Please Stand Up?”

In it, Brian describes a change that is taking place from traditional marketing where we speak through relatively impersonal top down messages to one where we have real conversations with people.

He says:

“We’re starting to figure out that we need to humanize our story. We’re realizing that we would never speak to our friends and family through messages, so why should we speak “at” the very people we want to reach and befriend. We’re opening our ears and our minds to acknowledge that we can no longer push our thoughts at people in order to earn resonance; we have to listen, talk, listen, assess, and contribute value.”

And,

“Instead of top down communications and focusing on the influence and control of messages and perception, we’re learning that those influential groups of people are now our peers and therefore require respect, honesty, and support in order for us to earn their trust – and hopefully their business and enthusiasm along the way.”

So how does a marketer go about this? Brian also provides very practical advice including:

“Observe the online communities where your company and brands (or those of your competitors) are actively discussed and figure out how to participate in those conversations as if you were approaching someone in real life whom you greatly respect. Perhaps the most valuable piece of advice I can share is to pay attention to the culture of each community and how people communicate and interact with each other. This will reveal how best to embrace the opportunity and reach out to people though a through a new form of “un” marketing.

And,

“- Start by participating as a person, not as a marketer.

- Talk like a person, not as a sales person or message factory.

- Be helpful and bring value to the conversation.

During this entire process, you’re contributing to the personality and the perception of the brand you represent.”

This advice is right on the bull’s-eye and exactly the type of marketing that I believe in. At what point did we forget that it has always been about people and relationships, about adding value? I’m glad this movement is under way.

On one side of the line we have blatant pitches, advertisements, and cold calls. To the receiver, these obtrusive encroachments are usually unwelcome and instinctively tuned out and deflected. No intention or need has been declared by the receiver.

On the other side of the line we may also have blatant pitches but it is perceived completely differently. On this side they are more than welcome; in fact, they are invited. What’s the difference?

The key is the point of need and the expression of this need online.

While this person may ultimately need your product in both cases, it probably isn’t the top priority for him right at this moment; he is busy and has other things to do so the timing of an uninvited pitch doesn’t match the point (in time) when he feels that need. The pitch is perceived as a rude interruption. Even worse, the company making the pitch loses brand equity because they have taken from the target customer’s valuable time and annoyed him with an unwanted solicitation.

On the other side of the line, you don’t pitch on your terms. You connect, listen, and participate in the online community. Then, when this same customer expresses a need, declares an intention, or poses a question online which you can help with, you have the opportunity and also the invitation to connect around the expressed need. Now you are helping and not interrupting.

Many companies have begun to use social media monitoring solutions (disclosure: my company’s product) in order to effectively listen online. While the initial business goals may start with monitoring conversations about your brand, measuring your share of voice, and identifying the communities of influence, companies can also tap into another benefit of effective listening: you can meet people at their point of need.

Because listening in this way is such a rare practice, the recipient is pleasantly surprised. They are delighted that you are listening to them and even more impressed that you are responding to something they said online. There are many needs & intentions being expressed online right now which are lost opportunities because no one is listening. Check out this interesting example/experiment: “I Want To Buy A Toyota Yaris“. Here is another example of how a negative perception can develop when a brand is not seen to be listening to online conversations.

The point of need changes everything. This is why most traditional outbound campaigns – regardless of the product – yield between 1-3% response rates. The timing is wrong most of the time.

This is the benefit of online listening. You always get the timing right.

Meet them at their point of need.

“Only 2.6% of US shoppers use blogs when researching purchases, according to a recent JupiterResearch survey cited in a March 2008 Internet Retailer article. That has some online retailers questioning blogs’ marketing value.”

The statistic naturally seems to support the notion that advertising on blogs (or perhaps even blogging about a product) has little impact or marketing value. Immediately, my next thought was:

What percentage (%) of US shoppers uses their television or radio when researching purchases? I don’t need to run the survey, the answer is: 0% of US shoppers use television when researching purchases.

Think about it. Marketers continue to invest billions in television advertising, a medium that is used for entertainment, not for researching purchases. If marketers believe there is sufficient ROI to make these investments, would not a medium or channel that is actually sometimes used for research purchases (by 2.6% of buyers) be considered high quality by comparison?

This single metric also misses the idea of the “topical” proximity of blogs. For example, when I am watching “Prison Break” on television, I am not thinking about cars and do not intend or expect to engage with a car advertisement, but when I am reading Autoblog I am already concentrating on the topic, even though I may not be researching a purchase.

Here is a video which I first saw on Seth’s blog that perfectly illustrates: “It is easy to miss something you are not looking for.”. Of course, blogs are most effective as conversational tools, but they certainly do have marketing value.

The slogan summarizes his theory about the influence of communications media on society. His thesis was that a communications medium influences society by the inherent characteristics of the medium rather than the contents of its message. Hence, the medium itself is the message; the medium itself is the greater influencer of society - more than the messages it is carrying.

Now, honestly, when I first decoded his famous slogan, I thought, “that can’t be right”. Surely it is the ideas themselves that change society and not the communications pipe through which they are sent? I mean, did McLuhan really believe that the impact of television on society would have been the same regardless of the type of programming? Yes, he apparently did.

At first, this seems counter-intuitive, but let’s consider an example: e-mail. Did the introduction of e-mail as a communication medium, by its own characteristics, change society (ex: how we work) or was it the specific messages we received? When you really think about it, this particular medium has completely transformed how we work. Try working without a computer (or any email device) for a day and you will be reminded just how much the medium itself has impacted society.

In his Prologue to The Gutenberg Galaxy – McLuhan stated that media are “extensions” of our human senses, bodies and minds. And he believed that each medium produced a different effect on how we view the world.

For instance, he argued that “the technique of suspended judgment” (or suspended disbelief) was brought on by the story telling characteristics of radio, movies and television and that this was a key point of change in the 20^th century in terms of how we now look at the world.

Whether you agree with his theories or not, it is certainly interesting to think about the impact of social media, or rather the Social Medium, and all of its new characteristics. In particular, I wonder how the unique conversational characteristics of the Social Medium might be changing our values or views. In what ways do you think the current adoption of the Social Medium is changing our perceptions of the world?

The social medium is the message.

As background, Jeremiah Owyang defined a meme as, “an idea or discussion that grows and spreads from individual to individual into a lengthy commentary”.

The whitepaper connects influencers to memes. It begins by recording the opinion of Jeff Jarvis who believes that an influencer is either a meme starter or a meme spreader. The roundtable then adds other types of influencers to the list such as the meme adapter, meme commentator, meme reader, but reaffirms that the first two have the greatest impact (starters and spreaders). The group also references Charlene Li’s technographics that categorizes online consumers into creators, critics, collectors, joiners, spectators, and inactives.

So here is my question: How should we consider an influencer who actually becomes a part of the meme they are influencing? Should we introduce a new type of influencer called a “meme insider” - an influencer who has somehow crossed over to become part of the actual meme or topic?

My sense is that a meme insider has a two-way connection with the meme itself whereby the influencer acts upon the meme (as a starter, spreader, adapter or commentator) and then the meme, as it grows, acts to increase the individual’s overall influence for the given subject matter.

It then occurred to me that this is easy to measure. It is much like citation analysis but measured within a meme. Consider the concept of a measurement called a share of meme or an Influencer Share of Meme. For now, let’s define it as “the percentage of all media content within a Meme which specifically mentions the influencer”.

So I thought I would test drive the idea for the “distributed influence” meme. I setup a topic profile to analyse the meme in our social media monitoring & analysis system. I then compared each of the roundtable participants and also added a few other influencers who contributed to the meme.

You can see from the above chart that Jonny Bentwood is not only the meme starter, but he is also a prominent part of the meme itself. His Influencer Share of Meme is 43.6% (48 mentions out of 110 on-topic posts in a 30 day window). This means that when someone talks about distributed influence, they also talk about Jonny Bentwood 43.6% of the time. The remaining Influencer Share of Meme leaders for meme are Peter Kim with 12.7%, Jeff Jarvis and Steve Rubel at 11.8%, David Brain at 10.9%, Max Kalehoff at 7.2%, Keith O’Brien and Henry Copeland at 6.4%, Dr. Walter Carl, Sarah Petersen and Charlene Li at 5.5%, Jim Tobin and Rick Murray 4.5%, Kami Huyse at 3.6%

I am not proposing that this measurement is the primary way to measure influence, but I am thinking that it could be useful as a part of the overall mix. I just throw it out there for discussion.

Another interesting point is that this influencer share of meme is a dynamic value that can also be measured over time.

For example, the illustration above shows a time series chart comparing the Influencer Share of Meme for David Brain and Jim Tobin over the past 30 days. From January 16 to January 23, David Brain had a 19.3% SoM where Jim Tobin had 0%. But then you can see that Jim Tobin jumps in and grabs a 41.6% SoM from January 31 to Feb. 2 where he and his ideas suddenly became a bigger part of the meme… although the meme momentum itself (the red line) is gradually slowing at the moment.