Anyone who communicates is trying to communicate an idea
with his/her audience. This is what the
basic root of communication is, trying to influence people. Basically, when you
communicate, you are trying to get others to adopt your opinion as their own.
In the text book by Robert Heath and Michael Palenchar, Strategic Issues Management: Organizations and Public Policy Challenges,
the authors make the point that public opinion and public policy go hand in hand
(pg 50) and they discuss how corporations and organizations have developed over
the years. It used to be that businesses were assumed good and ethical but
then, during some turbulent years and through the changing of local business to
a larger business model, public opinion started to shift. With this shift in
public opinion, businesses and organizations had to think on their feet in
order to get the public back on their side. This trend has continued today and
it brings to light the fact that, whoever controls public opinion or whoever is
forming opinions that are being adopted by the public are very powerful people.
This leads to the question, how does someone become an
opinion leader? In his TED talk, Simon Sinek talked about how opinion leaders
all share one commonality and that was how they thought. He mentioned what he called the golden circle
and it encompassed three words: why, how, and what. He mentioned that most
people think from the outside going in from what to how but that, opinion
leaders, when they communicated, they went from why to what. He says that they
knew why they thought what they thought.
This is an important point because people have a harder time following
others if they allow what they are doing to shape why they are doing something.
(The video is 18 minutes but it is not necessary but advisable to watch the whole thing)
For instance, I work as a youth director at pretty big
church in Troy and I have talked to many other youth workers from other
churches. One of the things that most youth workers from smaller churches are
always asking is “what can we do to bring in more young people?” On the surface
this seems to be a good question to ask because a church can die without young
people. I have even asked my volunteers at times, “What can we do to …. (fill
in the blank)?” However, if Sinek is right, this is a huge mistake. I should
not and those other churches should not be so focused on what can we do to
accomplish a goal but we should be asking ourselves why that particular goal is
important. We should be asking what motivates us to set such a goal and
communicate that to our audience. In the example of smaller churches wanting
young people just to continue the church, I wonder what would happen if the
church looked at its motivating factors and found that that particular church’s
“why” was about the elderly. What would happen if, rather than fixating on
something they do not care about, they started to focus on being the best they
could be for their particular public. If that church were to refocus their
values and start focusing on a strong senior citizen program then, perhaps,
they would grow. Just not in the way that they expected to.
This example is not that far off the mark. According to an article
from Advertising Age, Starbucks had
to do something similar. Starting in 2008, Starbucks was starting to slip from
prominence as sales and traffic had begun to slip for the first time ever. In
order to combat this Starbucks had to look at what might have been causing this
issue and had to address it. They accomplished this by returning to their
original “why” that had led them to prominence in the first place. However,
they did this in a new and innovative way. They did this through social media.
The reason that this is a return to their original “why” is answered in the
article by Chris Bruzzo, Starbucks' VP-brand content and online who said,
"Maybe we have an unfair advantage because in so many ways Starbucks and
the store experience is like the original social network." He also said
that, “consumers come in, hang out and talk to our store partners. They sort of
got to know us as a brand in a very social way." So, for Starbucks
the start of the business was not the fact that they sold coffee. This had been
done long before Starbucks. What made Starbucks so successful was that they
understood that people wanted to be social and they wanted to provide the
atmosphere to do so. It was this desire that drove Starbucks and it is what
allowed them to be an opinion leader in the business of coffee.
The story of Starbucks brings about an important point. This
is the question of the place that social media has in an opinion leader’s
world. This is important to consider because, in order for an opinion to catch
hold, it has to be accepted by a large number of people and, with social media,
it makes it much easier to spread your idea. So, in this day and age, is an
idea or opinion that stems from an organizations value system more important or
can a lack of a value be overcome by a sophisticated social media marketing
plan? In his article for the International Journal of Advertising, Shintaro
Okazaki states that studies have found that “online know-how exchange
significantly influences the overall perceived value of the products, but not
repurchase intention (i.e. loyalty) (pg 443).” If being an opinion leader
requires that people continually listen to you and allow you to influence them
then something such as loyalty is of great importance. This tells me that a
sophisticated social media marketing plan will help to get the word out but it
will not help retain the attention needed to be a large factor in opinion
leadership. Bruzzo also said about Starbucks that "If we had approached it
not from 'what you know and love about Starbucks' but as a marketing channel,
we would have taken this down a path that would have been very different"
and "This was not [built as a] marketing channel, but as a consumer
relationship-building environment (adage.com, York)." This, along
with what Sinek had to say in his TED talk tells me that, to be an opinion
leader, you must know what motivates you and you must act upon that knowledge
because people connect with ideas and values and while flashy get ups may keep
them interested for a while, to be a true leader of opinions, you must operate
from your values.
Starbucks Story
Okazaki, S. (2010) Social influence model and electronic word of mouth PC versus mobile internet. International Journal of Advertising. Pp 439-472
Heath, R. and Palenchar, M. (2009) Strategic issues management: Organizations and public policy challenges. Sage Publications, Inc. Edition 2, Pp 45-76
No comments:
Post a Comment