Tapping into the Ground swell (Reading Reflect Post # 2 Chapters 5 and 6)

Tapping into the Groundswell:

why companies want to tap into the groundswell

Well for starters as established in the reading text "Your Brand is what your customers say it is" so simply put it does make sense to at least have a clue into what your customers are like.

Apart from the fact that its is common sense, gone are the days when companies have to wait until they have to prepare and carry out a survey to find out what their customers thought of their products and services in general.

In today's world thanks to Facebook, twitter and alike companies or businesses for that matter can get feed back on their products and services right away.

what objectives do they have in mind while in their pursuit to tap into the groundswell?

Listening: This is such a useful tool. Instead of the extensive and tedious market research especially if the goal is customer insight for use in marketing  and development.

one of the ways of doing this is through brand monitoring.

Talking: This is also one way of using the groundswell to get your company known especially in the digital world. This is a very helpful strategy if your company is ready to extend its current digital marketing initiatives.

Energizing:  If you company has brand enthusiasts a good example can be MINI USA as referred to in chapter four of the reading text. In which MRS Trudy then CEO of MINI USA energizes the group of mini owners who intern empower the company with awareness by way of word of mouth.

Supporting  this is simply setting up the groundswell with tools to help your customers support each other. this works well for companies like Facebook, google and so on.

basically companies that provide updates on software or something of the sort. For example Microsoft supports the ground swell when ever it provides its customers with free software updates to help fix bugs in application software.

Embracing: This in-fact is getting your customers more involved in the every day running of your business basically giving customers a chance to may be design the products.

Talking to the Groundswell: This is i think is by far the most difficult part as you can just mess up if the timing isn't right...
For example  when Digiornos pizza company just messed up with the #why i stayed on twitter.

Video on how companies use story book apps for marketing and PR

How ever there are some companies that have been doing this quite well for example the companies that use Storybook apps to create deeper and more meaningful connections with their consumers all while keeping the conversations focused on their brands. This enables people (consumers) to share their personal experiences with a product or brand directly with the company that made those experiences possible.

Story Panda (Another example of a story book app)