Sometimes the strategic marketing reason you engage in a business activity (like social media) is different than or at least greater than the publicly stated reason. That strategic reason is what I’m calling an “unintended benefit.”
Several years ago I began developing a loyalty program for the organization I was working for. Our purpose seemed obvious – we wanted to create a program that would increase the repeat purchases of our existing customers.
I began investigating other successful loyalty programs at much larger companies. They had no doubt spent a great deal more resources researching and fine tuning their programs than our relatively small organization could afford. No sense in trying to reinvent the wheel – right?
I found along the way that many major loyalty programs were actually not used to drive loyalty. At the time that surprised me but the more I learned, the more it made sense in many situations. When volume is high and price is low the rewards that are financially justified are likely not great enough to truly change someones behavior.
Think of all those little plastic cards you have hanging on your key ring. There’s probably one for most of the stores you shop at regularly. When I get that familiar last minute call to pick up something from the grocery store on the way home, I generally don’t alter my commute to go to a particular store. I go to the one that is on the way and sort through my stash of cards for the appropriate one. I am willing to carry those cards around all day though because of the dollar or two I’ll save when duty calls.
The grocery store really hasn’t changed my behavior but they have paid me (via a discount) to give them information about myself and my purchasing habits. In that sense “loyalty” is a misnomer and consumer profiling is an unintended benefit.
I was reminded of all this while reading this quote from an article by Owen Thomas for Business Insider titled Facebook Has Opened Up A New Front In Its War With Google For The Future Of Advertising:
Often misunderstood as a social network, Google+ has been described by executive chairman Eric Schmidt and other executives as an “identity layer” across Google products. Its social features provide an incentive for users to log in with Google accounts.
Clearly Google is not out to create a social network for it’s own sake but for the benefits it can achieve through it.
In a USA Today article Coke is a winner on Facebook, Twitter by Jefferson Graham, Coke SVP Wendy Clark says:
Fans are twice as likely to consume and 10 times more likely to purchase than non-fans.
I’m sure that is not the only insight Coke is gleaning from it’s social media interactions with patrons.
I still frequently come across people who think social media is a tool to broadcast the companies sales pitch. Fortunately it is increasingly understood that the best use for social media is to create genuine interactions with your customers through the development of engaging content. Generally even with that understanding the ultimate goal is still to influence those customers through more subtle offers or by increasing the customers affinity for the brand. That is a legitimate strategy.
The lesson here is that some of the biggest companies are beginning to find “unintended benefits” from their social media efforts. It is worth while for smaller organizations to keep that possibility in mind as they develop their social media strategies.
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