People Are Talking

When it comes to dis­cus­sions of mod­ern mar­ket­ing, it is not uncom­mon to hear peo­ple, myself included, state some­thing like “peo­ple are out there talk­ing about your brand.” The more I hear this state­ment said, the more I ques­tion its accuracy.

The premise is not entirely wrong. In fact, it is accu­rate in the sense that com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nol­ogy has evolved, empow­er­ing peo­ple to more pub­licly express their views to the world. This includes shar­ing sto­ries of delight or dis­plea­sure expe­ri­enced with com­pa­nies and brands. From “Dell Hell” to “Com­cast Must Die” to myr­iad other out­cries for con­sumer jus­tice, the Inter­net has given us all a soap­box that is wired to the world, and we are using it to broad­cast our sto­ries to friends, fam­ily mem­bers, and total strangers. As a result of this peo­ple now have the capac­ity to tell sto­ries that may involve your brand.

How­ever, most peo­ple are not talk­ing about your brand at all. “What?” you say. “Wait, the mar­ket­ing nerd is say­ing that peo­ple aren’t talk­ing about brands on social media?” “Has he lost his mind?”

First, most brands do lit­tle do encour­age peo­ple to actu­ally talk about them. They are not edgy enough to be hated, nor incred­i­ble enough to be wor­thy of dis­cus­sion. Most are just ade­quate, and peo­ple don’t tend to spend time talk­ing about ade­quate. There are just too many other things to dis­cuss. Yes, if you screw up fre­quently or are wildly uneth­i­cal peo­ple may voice their dis­plea­sure, but gen­er­ally most are too busy to care about you. The real­ity is most peo­ple have no idea your brand exists.

This brings me to my other thought on why the idea of “peo­ple talk­ing about your brand” is slightly off the mark. Even when they men­tion you, peo­ple are not really talk­ing about you. They are talk­ing about them­selves. They are the hero of the story, not you or your brand. Peo­ple are talk­ing about their frus­tra­tion with the prob­lems they encounter in their lives. They are shar­ing their joys and tri­umphs over adver­sity. They are telling their story, not yours.

If you really want peo­ple to talk about you, focus on their story. Prac­tice empa­thy and put your­self in their shoes. How does your com­pany make their story bet­ter? Think about their prob­lems. Under­stand their hopes and desires. Then, do some­thing that can make their story more inter­est­ing, more sat­is­fy­ing, and more remark­able. Smart brands, the ones that under­stand the power of word of mouth mar­ket­ing, fig­ure out ways to go beyond ade­quate, and cre­ate mean­ing­ful expe­ri­ences that are wor­thy of talk­ing about. Your story should be about improv­ing your cus­tomers’ stories.

This arti­cle by David E. Bow­man was orig­i­nally pub­lished in the Novem­ber issue of DaytonB2B Magazine.