As a grandfather who launched his first businesses as a teenager in the wild and crazy 1960s, I do reasonably well at staying current with today's digital advances and the opportunities they present for businesses of all sizes. Understanding new platforms and apps is not difficult, social media and digital networking may have given us new ways of communicating with customers, but the underlying concepts reflect business practices that go back a very long time.
Having suffered from dyslexia all my life, I do occasionally have trouble keeping up with acronyms. I once famously suggested at a meeting that my team should get a "DNA" in place before continuing talks with a potential business partner.
There were a few embarrassed coughs and some "did-he-really-say-that?" glances shot at me before a senior executive from Virgin quipped: "Ehm, Richard, we don't really need to check into their genetics, a simple nondisclosure agreement will suffice."
I put my foot in the alphabet soup recently when a conversation with one of our marketing groups turned to the need for "UGC." Rather than asking "UG . What?" I instead said, "Oh yes, I remember UGC–the French company that acquired Virgin Cinema Group." Again, I got some blank, mystified stares before someone said, "That may be so, Richard, but this UGC is 'user-generated content.' You know, like earned media, that kind of stuff."
Fortunately, the conversation improved from then on because it turned out that I have been an active promoter of UGC for decades. The idea at its core is to give customers a forum to interact with your product or service, share their feedback and tell other perspective buyers just how good your brand is. Two can play this game!
I recently read a report on a study conducted by the Nielsen Company in which they found that while 47 per cent of consumers in countries around the world trust traditional paid advertising, a whopping 92 per cent trust earned promotions (such as word-of-mouth recommendations from friends).
Similarly, earned media involves messages that advertisers don't fully control. Instead, this type of brand publicity relies on customers' everyday use of the Internet and social media.
We're essentially talking about word of mouth, delivered on a multitude of apps and platforms. It has always been true that when your friend says, "I always use Product X for reasons A, B and C," that's a lot more effective in inspiring you to buy Product X than anything that Product X might say about itself in a slick paid advertisement. Digital technology simply makes it easier for customers to recommend products.
Discussions about this can be full of buzzwords about "social engagement" and keeping the right "content" out there, about "social signals" that are "quality indicators," or about the "ripple effect" can occur when paid and earned media converge and create a digital marketing tidal wave.
Don't be distracted by the terminology: engaging with your customers is critical, and the strategy you decide on should be tailored to your business.
When you're working on reaching out to customers, don't forget that you also have to win over your internal customers, that is, your employees and colleagues. They are likely to generate your brand's most influential "content," so make sure you are also putting effort into developing or maintaining open internal communications.
Years ago I used to delight in cold-calling Virgin Atlantic passengers in their limos (which we provided) after their arrival at London's Heathrow airport. I'd ask how they'd enjoyed the flight and whether they had any suggestions about how we could do things better.
I suppose this strategy could have been called "RGC: Richard-Generated Content." It was always a great source of customer feedback and a wonderful exercise in public relations.
These days I reach more people on a much wider range of topics via my blog at Virgin.com/RichardBranson, which somehow attracts millions of visitors and stimulates all nature of healthy debate.
And, if I can manage to attract eight million followers on LinkedIn, there's no reason why other entrepreneurs–no matter what their age–can't go with the social media flow and make it work to their commercial advantage too.
(Richard Branson is the founder of the Virgin Group and companies such as Virgin Atlantic, Virgin America, Virgin Mobile and Virgin Active. He maintains a blog at www.virgin.com/richard-branson/blog. You can follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/richardbranson. To learn more about the Virgin Group: www.virgin.com.)
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