Social technologies are changing the way consumers make decisions. As social tools get more advanced and consumer adoption grows, our attention spans decrease and the focus shifts from talking to doing. You don’t have to be a gossip queen or great communicator to tell the world what you think of this business or that product, you can share that with the push of a button now. The value is shifting more and more from what people are saying to what they’re doing, making talk cheaper than ever.
Is sharing social actions becoming more important than sharing words?
Northern Illinois University department of Interactive Marketing defines interactive marketing as a conversation, not a one-time transaction. But is it really about a conversation? I argue that what we are seeing now is not interactive marketing which focuses on the individual consumer and “conversation.” Instead, we’re looking more at Action Based Marketing in which the focus shifts from individual conversations to collective social actions. It is these collective actions that the action based marketer can leverage (with the help of technology) to incorporate strategies that deliver actions to influence consumer decisions and ideas.
For instance,
- Instead of “talking” about how much you like something, you just “like”, enough said.
- Instead of talking about what you did last night and where you went, you simply “check in” and share that activity with the world.
- Instead of talking about your recent purchase in an amazon review, you share it at that very moment of purchase with the swipe of your debit card.
- Instead of talking about a site, you socially bookmark it and share it with the world.
- Instead of just talking about what’s going on in your current reality and exchanging information via talking to make decisions on where to go or what to do, you can tune into augmented reality to get information in real time to add value to your decisions.
What else?
I define Action Based Marketing as a form of marketing that focuses on leveraging collective social actions to influence consumer decisions and ideas.
What are some ways in which Action Based Marketing exists?
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Twitter: GCSocialMedia
May 28, 2010 at 9:00 pm
Brilliant article – we have become so tool oriented in social media, we forget to actually engage in a conversation.
As you say we “like” we “share” but we dont converse.
Is it because to do the “like” “share” thing is simply a mouse click, but to talk well that takes time and effort, are we all becoming to lazy?
Or is it that we have become so self centred, ie interested in our own metrics for how many people “like”, “share” or click on our posts – that we really are only doing the “like” “share” on other people’s posts just in the hope that they may return the favour?
I think the latter and that is why I think this article is so brilliant – it has highlighted the whole issue so well!
Twitter: julianacrispo
May 28, 2010 at 9:39 pm
Thank you for the great insight Cam. It has to be a combination of what you suggested in your comment.
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