Showing posts with label groundswell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label groundswell. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Embracing the Era of Picture




In modern society, pictures play an important role in people’s daily life. On the one side, with the development of technology, people have more and more channels to gain large amount of information—internet greatly accelerates this progress. On the other side, this competitive society force people to gain information as much as they can. Consequently, the best choice for people is to gain maximize information in a shortest time—picture may be one of the solutions to this problem. Because of the limited time, people prefer to get information from a vivid picture, which spend a short time and more easier to understand. And obviously, to some extent, compared with our ancestors, people are lack of patience nowadays. Convenience and high speed are part of features in modern society. Although it’s very disappointed that long text without photos is less attractive and seems boring to most of people, it’s true that excellent pictures get more attention and help a lot amplify the text.
www.apple.com
www.apple.com

 
www.apple.com
 

 
To a large extent, pictures seem more important, especially for social media. Because in the groundswell, companies interact with their target audience through many social media tools which pictures help a lot in this mutual communication. When speaking of pictures in groundswell, ads will possibly first arise in our minds. In this blog, I just focus on print ads. There is no doubt that innovation is indispensable in ads creation. All designers try their best to bring freshness, surprise, visual shock to audience, which can leave a great impression on customers. If a company put a long text to introduce its high quality products, almost no one will spend a long time to finish reading in the street, even on the internet. Sometimes, with the development of ads, people will judge products more rely on the surface at first sight. Of course, high quality of product is the key to success. However, if you don’t give others a chance to get closer, how can they get a further understanding of your products?
As a matter of fact, picture will be a great assistance of companies when talking and energizing with the groundswell. Obviously, to some extent, pictures are more persuasive than text. Besides patience, modern society is also lack of trust. As my last reflection post mentioned, people tend to have a feeling of resistance to advertisements—they are full of boast, superficiality and lie, though in most of time, ads actually can get people’s attention. However, it’s more difficult for customers to believe in text about products’ introductions. They want to see the pictures. Consequently, maybe more simple, lack of decoration, pictures of product introduction will be more persuasive. But compared with introductory pictures, ads still need some visual shock to attract consumers. It’s true that pictures are also engaged in energizing with the groundswell. A forum created by company is, basically, a home for energized customers. As the book Groundswell says:”people believe other people more than media.” Ratings and reviews help a lot in persuading customers. But pictures posted by consumers in the forum can make up for the invisible, vagueness and insecurity that come from not being able to see the products and just imagine it through some comments. Especially some cosmetic products, the print ads are decorated by photo shop. Consequently, customers want to know the exact color of one lipstick by some sharing pictures posted by other customers in forums or other communities.

 


 

Several days ago, I read a piece of news in CNN, Photographers, embrace Instagram. Instagram is a free photo-sharing program and social network that was launched in October 2010, which allows user to share their photos to other instagram users they connect to. It’s very convenient and particularly, you can apply a digital filter to it. A distinctive feature is that it confines photos to a square shape, similar to Kodak Instamatic and Polaroid images. Just as the news says:"Today, we're taking and uploading more than 200 million images per day via Facebook alone”  And facebook plays a very important role in the groundswell. All executives should not ignore this phenomenon. Nowadays, particularly smartphone becomes more and more prevalent in the society, which gives a good chance for people to share and connect with each other.“It's about the fact that technology can instantaneously compress our collective thoughts and images into binary digits of 1's and 0's.”
 

 
           

This is the era of picture. We can’t stop it, just to embrace it. Modern technology gives us opportunities to share pictures with others. And there is no doubt that taking advantage of pictures can be a good choice to thrive in groundswell.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Negative reviews? Turn them to your advantage



 www.amazon.com

The movement groundswell “comes from a thousand sources and washed over traditional business like a flood.(page 9)” “And while you can’t stop it, you can understand it. You can not only live with it; you can thrive in it.(page 9)” That’s the most important point in the movement groundswell. Just like you are standing on the cliff edge, only flying over canyon with some social technologies tools can you reach the prosperous side. If you turn back, you will fall behind. This is the reality. The history will move on. If you can’t change the world, then change yourselves. 

Just as the book Groundswell says:”In the groundswell, relationships are everything.(page 18)” The executives of companies want to communicate with consumers through social media—conducting some research, collecting feedbacks and so on. If you want consumers to buy your products, you should try to analyze and understand them—what they need, why they should buy your products. What’s more, nowadays, people are not alone; people are and desire to connect to each other. Maybe in the past times, they will ask companies and organizations for help. However, they can support each other through social technologies and unite, though they know nothing about each other, in making some influences in this society today. Forums, ratings, and reviews are good examples that show reaction among people who are involved in this movement.

As a matter of fact, almost all executives won’t regard reviews, ratings or comments on the website just as something fun. Considering that they are the important part in building a marketing strategy, to a very large extent, they are equal to the reputation of companies. Consequently, reviews are more positive, it’s much better to build a good image of a company. In China, some companies hire some people to post good online comments, vote for or give a high grade on their products in order to create a false impression that this company has a great reputation. We call the hired people “internet hirelings”.

 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 

www.amazon.com
 
 
   But shall we think about the online reviews in a new angle? First of all, we do agree  that positive comments of a company can help to build a good reputation. And as we all know, online reviews, comments, and ratings are important source that companies will collect some feedbacks from them, which can let executives have a more overall understanding of their products and improve them with the advises. However, we should not be afraid of some negative comments and very anxious to remove them in no time. On the contrary, we should use them to build a mutual trust with consumers.
 
Compared to remove negative reviews, we should post them on official site. More importantly, website should allow consumer to track the process that companies improve the products. This act can show companies’ sincerity to manufacture high quality products and provide the best service for consumers. As a matter of fact, the most important thing is to catch consumers’ mind psychologically. Firstly, posting bad reviews demonstrate that this is an honest organization—they don’t want to cover something truth from consumer. Secondly, compared to remove the reviews passively, taking an active communication with consumers is more important. Thirdly, just as the case, what happen to digg and aacs la(page3-6), tells us” people on the Internet showed they were in charge(page 6)”. Consequently, a company should let their consumers feel that they indeed can change something. This is the reason why they should allow consumers to track the process that they are improving products based on the reviews, comments on the Internet.

There is no doubt that there is much noise influence us to receive some messages from senders. The large amounts of information carry a heavier burden on our brains. How to attract consumers’ attention is vital to success. What’s more, a mutual trust that spends several years to build up may disappear in a flash. Consequently, removing or changing negative reviews help nothing to improve the product and service. However, in addition, those vicious slanders should be ignored or removed with no hesitation.

In all, negative comments, reviews, and ratings—something help to build up a mutual trust with consumers--are not monsters. Since you cannot get isolated from this movement groundswell, you should keep straight on. “You may go a little slower or a little faster, but you have to move forward.(page 75)”