Stefan Krogh-Hansens blog

I normally operate with marketing on the Nordic market consisting of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland. People outside often see this market as one, whereas people living in on of these five countries all know there is a lot of differences amongst them. We can even break this further down in each country, e.g. in Denmark people will definitely say that there is a difference between Copenhagen and the people living in ”Jutland” and people in Copenhagen will also say there is a difference in mentality whether you are living north, south, east or west. Tons of articles and papers have been written on culture.

So I believe it is fair to say that if different cultures (tribes) exist everywhere then they will also exist in online communities.

So what kind of implications can this have?

1/ When you drive new consumers into the pool of your online community (e.g. fanbook fan page), you should consider what the new recruits would give to the community.

So if you for example own a facebook fan group that is normally very active and seldom super negative to your updates, your consideration might be that it would be very nice to double the size of that community. The impact of doubling your fanbase can be quite significant on the culture. The comments can be more harsh (or more positive), the comments can increase, the quality of the comments can degrade or increase. It all comes down to what the new opt-ins carry in their luggage in terms of online culture.

2/Sub cultures can emerge

If we continue with our example of doubling the size our Facebook fan page, then I believe that  emerging subcultures is something to consider. Lets say that the values of the existing culture are something that is really established in the community. What happens if you bring another group into the fan-site of almost equal size but with a different view on some of the existing assumptions?

I could foresee some potential conflicts – these could be resolved quietly amongst themselves but it could also go the other way and result in conflict handling that requires heavy moderation, bans, warnings etc.

At least this is something that arguably should be considered when you want to grow your opt-ins.

3/ Damn it is complex

Culture is very complex and difficult to harness. The culture of your community is not only influenced by your inputs but also the users and not least all the other tribes and communities that they engage in. This makes it almost impossible to control, but this is also what I think is the beauty of online communities. None the less I still think one should consider how to grow the communities in a prober way. It is not fair for the existing community that has been loyal for years to bring in some new opt-ins with a completely different view and need for information. In this case I think that the purpose of the formum will fall between two chairs and eventually everyone will leave the community. If you really want to bring in a larger consumer group with a completely different culture you might want to consider making a sub-community and letting them co-exist.

Remember it is people and they cannot be manipulated on a longer term and why would you? It is the consumers’ honest opinion that makes your product/service/whatever better.

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I am not directly involved in this case and I don’t have any inside information about the case. I purely write this from my point of view

What Danske Bank surely has discovered during the financial crisis is that the consumers thrust in Danske Bank and the financial sector as a whole has dropped significantly – add to that there has been some very negative stories in the press as well.

To anticipate this, Danske Bank initiated a campaign to regain thrust. Normally companies (especially dull financial ones) would keep this 100% internal. They would conduct an analysis of their consumer’s satisfactory level and start a process of fixing some of the problems identified. The issue with that is that is so damn hard to convince their customers (and potential costumers) those changes now has happened. A costumer who is already disappointed about their bank is particularly a stubborn consumer to convince, thus resulting in an expensive price per reach afterwards.

Seeing is believing! What I think that Danske Bank has done very well is that they dare to engage in a completely honest and open dialogue with their consumers. They started their campaign on TV by urging customers as well as non-custumors to openly say what they think about Danske Bank. This ended up with 3.500 comments and even videos(!) on their site, a lot of them was negative and very skeptic about Danske Banks intentions and working method.  

Some of the comments said that Danske Bank was greedy, had no moral, etc. etc.  Danske Bank have to date answered 766 questions. I haven’t read more than a few, but some of the answers were written not only by mere web-guys but by higher ranking personnel in the company as well.

They ended up with 23 things that they wanted to change and they just recently made a video public where they stated their current process in their ambition to become a better bank.

The things identified range from openness to education, but are surely points that the consumers can look at and find that it in some way will benefit them.

If you understand Danish then check the link to Danske Bank to read more, if not have a look at the pretty pictures http://www.danskebank.dk/da-dk/bedrebank/documents/bedrebank.html

Kudos from me for being brave and honest with the costumers, let’s see if it pays I am not sure that this alone can pull it off. Personal wealth is something that is very emotional for consumers.

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I fell  in love the iPhone! I couldn’t buy it in the states as the phone was locked to the phone company AT&T and the Mac personnel wasn’t really helpful in assisting me to import it to Denmark (probably a policy they have).

Anyways what really interested me was the buying behaviour I had. I don’t think that I have seen any ads for the iPhone that I had noticed at least. I have of course seen some call-to-action ads from some of the danish phone operators but nothing that really convinced me. I have a passion for gadgets in general but I haven’t in particular had a very strong interest in the phone. I have seen a lot of PR and I have only heard positive word-of-mouth. However the magic moment happened when I had the phone in my hand and tried the smooth interface, saw some of the great applications and experienced using the phone as a browser. Everything worked very well. My mind when in to spin about all the different opportunities I could have with this phone; blogging, browsing my NAS server, controlling my squeezebox, going online in the sofa, using it for email, using it for work, you name it.

I went totally nuts. After the message that I couldn’t buy it in US, I actually considered buying the iPod Touch just in order to get the functionalities and I visited the store 4 times in all just to see the iPhone (..and the Macs as well).

I found my self neglecting all the bad things; camera not the best, no MMS support etc. The fact that I actually considered buying the Touch model said it all.

So this was a VERY strong urge to buy. Why was that? Why is Apple so successful in creating this urge in me? I think that the product it self convinced me. I suddenly discovered needs that I never thought I had. I suddenly realised all the things I could do after this purchase and I suddenly understood the very intuitive interface.

If I consider this in a social context as discussed elsewhere in this blog, then I think I was a bit inspired by the fact that so many had the phone in the US. At E3 almost everyone had it and was using it as both as a working tool and entertainment system. I also have some friends in DK that has it so I knew that I wouldn’t be out of place if I bought it, so it was a safe buy in that sense.

I didn’t buy it! … and still hasn’t. I came back to DK and i started to think a bit more rational on the purchase. In US when I was exposed to the phone and held it in my hand I started to think a bit emotional I think. Even though a lot of the things I was interested in was the practical features, I actually think that the cool interface and the sense of controlling everything with a finger touch impacted me somehow. Now that I am back in DK, I am still interested in the phone but I am in a bit more cognitive state now; a new iPhone has been announced maybe I should wait, should I buy a new window for my house instead, is it really necessary for me to own the phone, i would rather buy a used one because of the price etc.

I don’t know what the conclusion really is, but I know that the urge for the phone that Apple created for me was a strong emotional urge – well done. That is marketing at its finest. If I was a US citizen I would have bought it in the Beverly Center last week.

PS. Apple if you read this please sponsor one

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I was just checking my twitter the other day and the last 15 updates was from Lance Armstrong. I have been enjoying following his way back to the Tour De France, but these many tweets actually made me consider to un-follow him. I have actually quite recently unfollowed a “specialists” in the social marketing discipline – solely because of too many tweets.

Normally you would think that the reason for why I follow a guy like Lance Armstrong was to get a lot of info on what he is doing, but the level of info is getting too much now. I see it this way; there are different target groups. I am interested in the sport and the training he is doing, maybe a few insights from the sport e.g. all the doping controls. I am not interested in the person Lance Armstrong as such, therefore I am getting a lot of irrelevant information about him.

My point is that the consumer will see it as spam if the he/she gets irrelevant information so the marketeer should wisely consider what information that is relevant for his/hers followers. The same goes for social media specialists (and me!).

The downside of Twitter is really the lack of possibility to segment your tweets to different segments. That would really improve the power of Twitter as a marketing tool.

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http://www.howtousetwitterformarketingandpr.com/

(I got it from someone from my Twitter list, can’t remember who..)

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