Having The Weight Of The World On Your Shoulders
Brands in today’s 24/7 market need to be caught up on current events, understand consumer sensitivity, be able to adapt quickly, nurture consumer relationships, and have transparency.
Today’s market consists of many different cultures, political stances, religions, and more. With all these differences, comes greater consumer sensitivity. Online communication can either be a great resource for a brand or its greatest downfall. It is reported that millennials allow online reviews and social media to largely impact their purchase decisions. So a brand should be mastering consumer transparency, nurturing relationships, quickly adapting to needed changes, understanding consumer sensitivity, and being caught up on all current events and trending topics.
The world is constantly changing; news is now available to anyone and everyone 24/7. Brands need to be aware of important current events and how an upcoming post can come across in light of it. This can be seen in 2016’s Amazon Cereal Killer’s Tweet the day after the Orlando Nightclub shooting. The backlash was immense and it all could have been avoided if someone was keeping an eye on the news, as well as the content being posted. This scandal caused the pottery seller to have to close their storefront and negatively impacted the Amazon brand — for being insensitive and offensive.
Two posts ago, I spoke about a large mistake made by the Burger King UK brand when they tweeted “Women belong in the kitchen”. This is a great example of why brands need to understand consumer sensitivity. This scandal made the brand come across as sexist and ignorant. A brand should always have employees double-check any outgoing posts and campaigns to make sure that nobody will take offense.
Burger King also did not act quickly enough to rectify the issue online. This led to the post going viral and the brand gaining negative press. A brand’s ability to adapt and move quickly at any point and time is key to success and overcoming scandals.
Transparency with consumers can be a great pillar of trust for a brand. This can be seen with Patagonia, which openly states its mission for a more sustainable market. 81% of consumers said that trust is a deal-breaker in making purchase decisions. This goes to show that trust is more important than ever in marketing, and transparency is a great tactic to implement to gain it.
Speaking of trust, having open conversations and quick responses is extremely important in today’s 24/7 world. For a brand to nurture its relationship with its consumers, they need to respond quickly and wisely. Over 39% of social media users expect to get a response back from a brand within an hour of the message being sent. By not meeting expectations, brands can lose consumers’ trust, loyalty, and sales.
So while many brands may feel like they have the weight of the world on their shoulders, implementing these 5 practices should lighten the load.
