The Concerned Citizen

Reading Ch 1 of Citizen Marketers helped me understand the drive behind Social Media. I have used it everyday for years, but I never really stopped to think about where the motivation comes from. McConnell and Huba say that citizen marketers “don’t often represent the average person, member, customer, or citizen. They are on the fringes, driven by passion, creativity and a sense of duty. Like a concerned citizen.”
My favorite section was that of fanatics. Mainly because in class we have been talking about the power that people have to make change via the internet. The story about the Deadwood fans creating a voice strong enough to bring back the show for two two-hour episodes after it was cancelled was a great example of the power of bloggers.
It emphasizes the phrase “People are the message. Nobody likes advertisers anymore, just like I mentioned in my previous post about Brian Solis. According to Citizen Marketers “69 percent of Americans would pay for products that block out marketing and advertising.” The message is authentic when it comes from the people. These people are of all different ages and races and come from varying geographical locations, but they all have one thing in common; they are concerned citizens who create and search for genuine content that expresses what real people want, need and care about.

Ikea speaks to me about home

To me, marketing is about finding out what people want, not trying to convince them to like what you already have. The whole process is a conversation between people to share an understanding of what would make each person most satisfied. Brian Solis talks about this in his blog with the article Conversational Marketing Versus Marketing Conversations. He expresses the need to find out what people want rather then forcing them to fit into a marketers mold. The control is no longer in the hands of the marketer. The power has shifted to the people who already know what they want to buy. They have their own opinions and don’t need some marketer telling them that they are wrong because they should be wanting ______. Like Solis says, “Relationships are the new metric for ROI.” You want to make money? Make relationships with your customers. Make them feel at home with you.

Speaking of home, Ikea has a new take on home. Ikea is launching a new commercial in the UK soon, which is centered on the phrase “Home is the most important place in the world.” The commercial shows different times of homes from the outside and the tracking allows you to hear what is occurring inside of the houses, for example a child’s birthday party or someone typing. When I saw this I thought awwww, how sweet, which is exactly the response that Ikea was trying to extract from their customers. It hits close to your heart. This shows that Ikea knows that home and family are the most important aspects of life for the majority of their customers.

Also, if you take a look at the Ikea homepage you can find a link to My America At Home, which is a contest where people can submit photos to be published in a book. These photos portray families of different races, cultures and background in a coffee table book. Once again, Ikea is showing that they care about families of all shapes and sizes.