I will soon have to expand my efforts into other countries, and I have been pondering a lot how the concepts I know are true on the cultures I am most familiar with (American, Latin, West Europe) hold (or not) in other countries and cultures. Because of this it is reassuring to find the article: Online Social Networking In China: Just Listen , By Yann Lombard-Platet that is so full of valuable pearls of wisdom that sound so familiar but that spark out of the experiences of interactive marketing campaigns in China. Here a few excerpts:
“Just listen. I have always been educated that way. Open your ears, spend the time to listen to what the person has to say thereby giving yourself the opportunity to really understand that person and to address his or her concerns.”
- “facilitating conversations around the brand, leaving the door open to positive comments as well as criticisms….. People will not listen to anything if it is not substantiated or if it did not come from someone in whom they truly believe.”
- “not monitor the website or the conversations or try to censor bad comments…. The legitimacy of the blog came from these conversations and therefore the credibility of Avene’s claims was reinforced by different opinions…. This was indeed going against the popular belief that by just claiming or saying something, people will believe. This is no longer true.”
- “We are moving from propaganda to people having opinions and anyone who has an influential opinion can now reach more people than he had been able to in the past”
- “The strategy was to allow us the right to have a say on that particular situation after we had listened…. "We are hearing you, we are hearing what you have to say about us but this is what we have to say about ourselves."”
- “If you could be a fly in the corner of a room with the best representatives of the audience talking about your brand you would learn more than by paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for consumer research.”
Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.
Filiberto Selvas
OldSocialCRM 