Groundswell3
Through the reading of chapter 9 to 12, Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff gave us many examples about how to benefit business by using groundswell. In those chapter, we could see some actions from many companies, how did they actually use groundswell in their marketing strategies, which provided a clear vision for us to gain deep understanding of how to use groundswell in order to benefit business.
First of all, embracing the groundswell. The salesforce.com example showed us a way to embrace groundswell through an innovation community, which means to build a community for your customers, no matter is a forum, a real community or just a platform, it should be a place where you can have discussion and communication with your innovative customers. In this place, you can listen to your customers, you can talk, energize, engage with them, which can help you to figure out what they want, what they need, ideas are exchanged at here.
In fact, Riot also have done this, the example I mentioned couple weeks before, Riot would gather innovative players together to discuss how to change the game in next version, which is also very cool, Riot change the game based on what players want. Asking ideas from your customers, that is the reason why they can be so successful. Because customers know what you need to change, they know what you do not know, and they generate innovative ideas quick than your imagination.
However, it is good to have a great plan for your company, but it is important to do it step by step, you cannot work on the entire customer relationship in a short term. In the process of building your groundswell, you should be patient and have a view from long term perspective, dividing your plan to many small steps, which also have huge impact. Like the Dove example, Dove handled on current Real Beauty campaign, they held measurable success metrics to achieve their goal step by step.
Obviously, a leader (or some leaders) who has a view of long term perspective is important for a company, especially when this company is in a commend-and-control structure. According to the example of Unilever, the reason why their "evolution" had been done was the pushing from their leaders, Rob and Babs. Leaders who have the view, they can share this vision with others in this company, and they have the power to make decision to put the company on the right track.
First of all, embracing the groundswell. The salesforce.com example showed us a way to embrace groundswell through an innovation community, which means to build a community for your customers, no matter is a forum, a real community or just a platform, it should be a place where you can have discussion and communication with your innovative customers. In this place, you can listen to your customers, you can talk, energize, engage with them, which can help you to figure out what they want, what they need, ideas are exchanged at here.
However, it is good to have a great plan for your company, but it is important to do it step by step, you cannot work on the entire customer relationship in a short term. In the process of building your groundswell, you should be patient and have a view from long term perspective, dividing your plan to many small steps, which also have huge impact. Like the Dove example, Dove handled on current Real Beauty campaign, they held measurable success metrics to achieve their goal step by step.
Obviously, a leader (or some leaders) who has a view of long term perspective is important for a company, especially when this company is in a commend-and-control structure. According to the example of Unilever, the reason why their "evolution" had been done was the pushing from their leaders, Rob and Babs. Leaders who have the view, they can share this vision with others in this company, and they have the power to make decision to put the company on the right track.
Thank you for sharing so many examples with us! I agree with you that a good leader can be a key to the success in taking advantage of groundswell. It is important for leaders to see the big picture and lead their company on to the right direction in the future.
ReplyDeleteYeah, especially in those command-and-control structure company, leaders can decide everything of a plan, so that is important to have a good leader.
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