“The average estimate themselves by what they do, the above average by what they are.” Johann Friedrich Von Schiller

What makes your brand unique ?

Brand reputation is made nowadays as much online as in the real world, ask Nespresso or LeShop two successful and innovative Swiss brands.

In these very competitive markets, reaffirming your brands identity and core values is more important than ever and social media is a great opportunity to do that. What makes your brand special ? What makes it unique ? Is it innovative ? Is is the customer service ? Is it the way it interacts with its communities ?

Social media platforms such as Twitter have the unique ability to give a voice to a brand and to reaffirm its personality. When It comes to the way you tweet and build content on your timeline, many community manager quote Oscar Wilde: “Be yourself. Everybody else is taken.” This is the reason why any brand who wants to develop a presence online should really think about values it embodies before they start communicating on any platform.

Be more authentic

During a social media one-day seminar I held in February for Arventis (Association Romande de la Vente) in the Lake of Geneva Region, managers present were puzzled about Twitter, it’s ability to develop for brands a voice in 140 characters, communicate on projects in a more personal way and engage conversations.

Managing Swiss Marketing Lausanne‘s communities on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn for more than a year, I discovered how important it is for members, fans and followers to engage online as well as in the real world, during conferences and events. But online engagement comes only if you can interest your communities with content that is valuable to them without being intrusive.

Asked by managers at my seminar what I would recommend If they started right away tweeting, my first advice was to Walk the Talk and to stay as real as possible to build trust, loyalty and engage in the best conditions.

Walk the talk and do what you say

In this changing world where many things are in the process of reinvention, successful brands pay particular attention to the way they build trust offline and online as this affects engagement, consumer participation and loyalty to their projects.

As managers active in hospitality and tourism have come to learn, it is increasingly difficult to promise and not deliver as the new generation of connected consumers have the means to inform their communities about failed experiences via Twitter, Facebook or TripAdvisor and generate negative brand buzz very quickly.

To rebuild trust and loyalty, successful brands will have to focus in social media on what makes them authentic and on what they do best.  In this context, brand community managers will play an increasingly not only as brand speakers but also to monitor brand buzz, good or bad.

What is your opinion ? Have you any experience about a brand on social media you would like to share ? Do not hesitate to post comments. I’ll be glad to read and interact.

Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises. Demosthenes

A new year is starting

Happy New Year to all of my readers !

Let us start 2011 by remembering how important engaged customers are for businesses, specially in these times of economic uncertainty but also of great opportunities.

Proper engagement leads to customer participation, lasting relationships and affect brand affinity and customer loyalty. Unfortunately, these results cannot be obtained only by one-shot special promotions or loyalty programs. Proper engagement is the result of a more global Loyalty Building Strategy that focuses on improving continually the consumer experience at every customer touchpoint, online as well as in the real world.

Will 2011 be the Year of Customer Loyalty ?

The Loyalty Marketers Association predicted recently that 2011 will be the Year of Customer Loyalty.

Considering the increasing concern of managers I got to meet in November and December, the resolution to rebuild customer loyalty is becoming a priority for many businesses. In combination to the fantastic engagement potential of social media, this year could very well be a turning point in Customer Loyalty.

Promising is not enough any more

Engaging the rising mobile social consumer will certainly be one of the major challenges for some big brands in 2011.

As we discovered throughout some of my recent posts, a new generation is rising out of 2010′s social media revolution. Highly influenced by the digital natives, the mobile social consumers get their information via social media,  like to engage conversations with their favourite brands from which they expect reactivity, relevancy and value (service, usability, rewards …)

As Wired quotes in their very interesting article “How your networks are driving what you buy” to engage these consumers, businesses are increasingly turning products into conversation opportunities and launching innovative Social Commerce models as seen on Levi’s ad.

I’d like to thank all of my loyal readers for their comments on my blog and on Twitter. I really look forward to post even more articles on Loyalty and New Media in 2011 to see how social media, storytelling fit to make even more inspiring consumer experiences and engaged customers.

Interested in Loyalty Building & New Media trends & opportunities ? Don’t hesitate to join my group on LinkedIn for more content on these subjects in english & french.

“To accomplish great things, we must not only act but dream, not only plan but also believe.” Anatole France

Introducing the Ys

Born after 1977-1980, the Millennial Generation Y is set to become very important, arising major management, communication and loyalty building challenges & opportunities in the years to come.

At the top of the consumer influence pyramid, these new managers, employees and customers are already the largest in absolute numbers, as many studies show, with a buying power far more important than that of their parents. Having grown in mode 2.0, the Digital Natives value innovation, plurality, independence and working on projects that make sense to them and their communities. These citizens of the world are particularly aware of the forthcoming global sustainability challenges and are determined to change things.

The next Loyalty Building Challenge

After a very interesting conference held a few weeks ago in the Lake of Geneva Region by Rezonance on the challenges of Generation Y, I realized the future strategic importance for brands and companies to interest and retain this new generation of active, innovation dependent consumers motivated by new experiences and projects.

But how can companies inspire Momentum Y and build loyalty among these regular people doing amazing things ? How can businesses small or big get attention from this multi-tasking, always on the run generation ?

Inspiring Momentum Y to build Loyalty

Answering those questions will certainly require time and a specific study. Nevertheless, a new approach will be quickly necessary to start building loyalty with Millennials.

One of the keys elements of these future strategies will certainly be storytelling or storyplaying as brands like Nike, Vail or Nespresso inspire community momentum by telling stories on different media (online & in the real world) that appeal to a public used to follow information sources Twitter-style. Story based experiences will also have to bring real life value and interactivity.

How do you think businesses and corporations will have to proceed to build loyalty with the Millennials ? I’d be very glad to have your feedbacks and opinions !

“Put great things out. And you’ll get great things back.” Robin Sharma

Learning in a changing world

Loyalty Building has always been a major strategical issue for businesses. Retaining customers, making them happy has become even more of a challenge in these challenging post crisis times where companies discover customers driven by new values and motivations (connected, ethics driven, quality seeking, community conscious) .

Understanding how some successful swiss companies with loyal customers motivated them seemed then important to me. Knowing today the key role of customer experience, I was curious to understand how corporate leadership influenced their approach to loyalty.

Learnings from Robin Sharma

Having managed this summer Swiss Marketing’s social media platforms to promote the “Inspire for Excellence” Symposium with Robin Sharma held last Friday on IMD’s Campus in Lausanne, I got the opportunity to participate to this great event and hear what one of the world’s most inspiring leadership experts had to say.

Here are three key learnings for businesses from Robin Sharma’s workshop that apply to Loyalty Building:

1. To have loyal customers, businesses must show loyalty to them.
2. To be competitive, companies must focus on what they do best & improve continually
3. In order to make a difference in the mind of their customers, they must deliver the greatest possible value

Learning from Loyalty Leaders

Some of the most successful swiss companies (Nespresso, www.leshop.ch) with loyal customers in my study apply these key learnings. They express gratitude regularly and show loyalty to their customers in small and big ways. They focus on what they do best and deliver more value than expected. Most of all, theses businesses know why they sell online, produce great coffees and provide outstanding medical services. For those reasons their clients respect them, recommend them and keep coming back.

What is your opinion on the relationship between loyalty & leadership ? Would you like to share a comment ?

Kites rise highest against the wind – not with it. Winston Churchill

First year on Twitter

One year after my first tweet, one thing is sure: Twitter is special !

Beginning on Twitter takes an open mind, curiosity and the tools to engage with the Twittersphere. To be honest following multiple timelines can be quite challenging, specially when the people you follow live all around the world in different time zones !

But Twitter grows on you with every tweet, every new person you get to follow & know, every relationship you get to build. Messages might be limited to 140 characters but you discover everyday new ways to pass messages, be more creative on followfridays and engage.

Spontaneous interactions & Sharing

Twitter is about spontaneous interactions and sharing. Having covered live on Twitter last year’s Inspire for Excellence Symposium with Stephen MR Covey for the Swiss Marketing Club, I’ll always remember when I started receiving during the conference spontaneous retweet translations of quotes in portuguese and spanish from followers in Brasil and Venezuela !

With this special post I would like to thank all of my followers all around the world for their loyalty as well as my good friend Yann Graf a swiss multimedia project specialist, who introduced me to Twitter one year ago.

Twitter has been so far a very stimulating experience that has helped me to develop awareness on the importance of rebuilding customer loyalty, specially in these challenging times. It has also been a great opportunity to find some new loyal tweetfriends.

Come out and Tweet !

As I explained to a swiss firm in Vevey, during a Twitter Workshop in July, to understand better micro-blogging and Twitter you need to tweet, just as you must get your kite flying in the air to start having fun ! So tweet on !

What do you think about Twitter ? I’d be glad to have your feedbacks !

Location, Location, Location.  – Old Hospitality Management saying

Locate & Engage

Location based services are really hype at the moment. In fact, they are becoming a major social media trend with innovative platforms emerging such as Twitter Places.

What started as urban viral games could well bridge part of the gap between online communities and real people. As Wired Magazine stated it recently in an article, shouting location details to friends is the next logical step for users who bought online, googled and tweeted statuses.

For marketers, user location is the base of 4C communication strategies (content, context, community, connection). Locating users and consumers is a good way to assess their social activities, look for focused audiences and engage them.

Foursquared Loyalty?

Gameplay based actually !

A major challenge today in social media is to empower users / consumers in a fun way to ACT. Services such as Foursquare and Gowalla - with their innovative gameplay - motivate users to check-in, win badges and get as many mayorships as they can.

Speaking about Loyalty building & Location, Foursquare’s business model statement comes to mind: “Helping users connect with local business and helping local businesses connect with their best consumers”.

Logically Foursquare launched this spring analytics tools and dashboard to provide local merchants & small businesses with more information about their customers, monitor registered loyal consumer check-ins and reward loyalty accordingly.

Connecting with their best & more loyal consumers will certainly be a major loyalty building challenge for brands and point of sales. So stay tuned for more posts to come on this subject !

What do you think about Location based services such as Foursquare or Gowalla ? Do you think they are creating a new way of communicating ? Do you think they are bridging the gap between online communities and real people ? Let me have your feedbacks !

It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision. Helen Keller

The WOM Effect

In the midst of the Social Media Revolution, there has never been so many platforms to communicate messages and develop dynamically word of mouth (WOM) around projects & causes. As my study and recent seminar showed, a great part of the success of loyalty building campaigns is based on the ability of companies to deliver real value to their customers: promising is not enough anymore.

Needspotting in a new world

The ability to spot consumer needs has always been a key management skill. As companies need to change the ways they engage with increasingly informed and concerned consumers, the needspotting skill is becoming so much more important. Simply because New Media lets companies address directly & individually consumers that react.

Starting with the end in mind

Building strategies with the user in mind is the challenge.

Speaking of this new user-based strategies during a lunch, Yann Graf a good friend and Multimedia Project Manager, mentioned Foodspotting. This social media platform is a visual local guide that lets you find dishes instead of just restaurants. Working as a food Foursquare (with badges), Foodspotting lets users decide what dishes they want to show to their friends.

Although we cannot be certain of the success it’ll have, the thinking behind Foodspotting reflects this new building around the consumer drive that motivates also Location Based services (Foursquare, Gowalla): being closer to the user.

Interested in Loyalty Building & New Media trends & opportunities ? Don’t hesitate to join my group on LinkedIn for more content on these subjects in english & french.

What do you think  about the challenge of spotting needs of the new consumers ? I’d be glad to have your feedback.

Learning never exhausts the mind. Leonardo da Vinci

Learning & Sharing

When I started my Loyalty Building & New Media Study one year ago, I would have never thought that there would be so much interest from entrepreneurs in Suisse romande and that I would be organizing a Conference / Seminar for the Swiss Marketing Club – Lausanne

On April 29th 2010 this precisely happened as I got the opportunity to share with 30 marketing & sales professionals of different business backgrounds (telecom, banking, consulting & tourism) some of the best practices learned throughout my study and teach some basic loyalty building skills at the Hotel d’Angleterre & Résidence in Lausanne.

New Seminar, Interesting Questions

Some very interesting questions were raised during the conference by the audience. Here are some good examples & future entrepreneur challenges:

1. In the midst of the actual social media revolution, what is the importance of Loyalty Building in future of innovative communication strategies ?
2. How do you re-engage customers in positive long-term business relationships ?
3. During the workshop, many participants asked themselves whether offering services was enough to keep customers satisfied, as delivering is so important to meet real expectations.

Many of these topics will be developed in future posts. So stay tuned for more as a slideshare of the presentation will be published soon ! In the meantime I’d like to thank the participants of this seminar / conference for their motivation and interest in this special & hopefully useful day.

Do you have any questions ? Would you like to add any comment ?

Simple yet sophisticated, each of these products are particularly successful in very competitive markets. But what is so special about them ?

These highly innovative concepts combine natural physical interaction, social connection potential and great user experience with strong brands to reinvent the way you use your phone, access the web or play games.

Along their Tweet & Shake experiences, they add practical value by making life easier through Apps and helping personal development via virtual DS brain trainers & coaches.

Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. – Steve Jobs

Is this just the beginning ?

Considering the promising recently launched Apple iPad, forthcoming Tablet competitors and future products from Nintendo the answer is YES !

Tweeting, tapping, shaking & tilting is not only changing the way you phone or play games. It is changing the way stories are told to new generations of consumers. Check the new Alice App e-book and you will have a better idea of the iPad’s storytelling potential !

So does consumer success = innovation + fun + good brand ?

Adding value and making life easier for the consumer are important too.

At a recent Swiss Marketing Club conference on buzz marketing held in Lausanne, the speaker, Mr. Olivier Perez Kennedy insisted on how important it is to add value when engaging consumers in social media campaigns.

This is also true speaking of loyalty building as my 2009 study showed. Companies with loyal customers such as Nespresso improve constantly customer experience and add value by offering more of what clients expect of them: refined coffee experiences, high quality product & service.

What do you think of Tweet & Shake Experience ? I’d be glad to have your comments !