“Our Customers Don’t Use Stuff like Facebook and Twitter”

I’m not pointing fingers or ranting today, I’m just sort of perplexed. Three times this week I spoke to marketing research and/or loyalty marketing people at major corporations who said something like “Not sure about social media/social networks. We don’t think our core customers are on there.”

My response is usually, oh I see, well what percentage of your customers are on there? The response is invariably “Uh, don’t know.”

I’m kind of having a hard time understanding how this simple piece of information is missing from the “Insights” departments of so many companies. Can anyone help me out?

OK, so you have some CIO or CMO who isn’t on social media and hasn’t bought into it yet (not uncommon, actually). She/He says, “those facebooks” or “those Tweeps or whatever they’re called,” that’s just for kids. And then what… everyone around the table just nods in agreement?

How easy is it to go out and do a short survey just on social media (especially social networking) among your customers or an online panel? Or, for God’s sake, at least add 1-2 questions into a survey you’re doing on some other topic about Social Networks.

To me this is like saying my customers aren’t on the …

I’m not pointing fingers or ranting today, I’m just sort of perplexed. Three times this week I spoke to marketing research and/or loyalty marketing people at major corporations who said something like “Not sure about social media/social networks. We don’t think our core customers are on there.”

My response is usually, oh I see, well what percentage of your customers are on there? The response is invariably “Uh, don’t know.”

I’m kind of having a hard time understanding how this simple piece of information is missing from the “Insights” departments of so many companies. Can anyone help me out?

OK, so you have some CIO or CMO who isn’t on social media and hasn’t bought into it yet (not uncommon, actually). She/He says, “those facebooks” or “those Tweeps or whatever they’re called,” that’s just for kids. And then what… everyone around the table just nods in agreement?

How easy is it to go out and do a short survey just on social media (especially social networking) among your customers or an online panel? Or, for God’s sake, at least add 1-2 questions into a survey you’re doing on some other topic about Social Networks.

To me this is like saying my customers aren’t on the Internet. It’s simply crazy. It’s proven that people who are connected/know each other, tend to have similar attitudes and opinions and also purchase similar products/brands. If you think even one of your customers are on SNS you can bet there’s more!

Link to original postTom H. C. Anderson – Anderson Analytics