The thing with all this talk about social media and how it changes marketing is that I don’t think you’re going to like it. I don’t think the end state is what most companies are thinking about. Google doesn’t buy other companies because they seem neato. Pepsi doesn’t want to talk with a few hundred people at a time, do they? It’s just that all these businesses have built huge platforms, huge sales funnels, huge marketplaces, and I think what social software is setting us up for are cafe-shaped conversations.
My Vision of Paris
I only know Paris through the words of others, but here’s what I see: little coffee shops with no more than ten tables. I see little bags of groceries, you know those types in movies, with the baguette sticking out? (Always with the baguette). Everything there is neighborhood-sized. People walk or at the worst ride a bicycle. The mod use scooters. But they don’t span the whole city. They stick to their bank, their tribe, their cafe and their cheese shops of reference.
In this world, no one cares what large companies are doing. They buy what they like. They talk about what they like. They consume what their friends and neighbors consume. It’s nothing if it’s not something they need.
My Vision of Springfield
In every city USA (and this isn’t a bash on USA, but I’m talking about consumers), we are in a weird crux. We care about what car to buy next. We roam the grocery store aisles wondering what’s an interesting new snack to put in our kids’ meals. We are thinking about the holidays, the movies, the whatever else needs buying. Even in a credit crisis, we’re thinking about how we can spend more, and our government wants us to spend more, too.
Big Business Needs Mass Communication
Why should Best Buy try to reach the one when they do much more business trying to reach the one million? Who at The Home Depot is thinking that talking back and forth with folks on Twitter is important? One person at a time isn’t who buys things on a radar-shaking level.
Last summer, I met the CTO of Thomson/Reuters at a private event where I spoke. He was a smart man with a lot of responsibility. He didn’t even look at projects under $5 Million, meaning his employees handled those “little” projects. I asked him what he was worried about on any given day. His answer: nanoseconds. He was thinking about the speed of the world’s financial data.
This is not a man who needs to care if there’s a friending feature that would appeal to his typical customers.
So why?
Cafe-Shaped Conversations
I think we’re moving towards something and I don’t think it’s going to be an easy shift. I don’t think social media just plugs into the marketing mix, though sometimes others prove me wrong. Alan Scott, CMO for the Dow Jones shared his 2008 marketing spend and there wasn’t a dollar allocated to social media. Instead, he used social media as just another card in the marketing deck. He doesn’t treat it poorly. He just doesn’t call it out as anything really different.
For the rest of the world, I believe that there will be some issues with how social media delivers. I think some companies will want big conversations, mass messaging, when what we’re offering are cafe conversations. We’re offering the intimate, the personal, the chance to talk in numbers of dozens and hundreds, and to make the appropriate kind of impact.
So Why Am I At The Cafe?
Because I think that’s what’s selling. I think we’re buying that way. I think that telling you about my experience with Jameson and Bank of America will be the new influence. I think that full page ad in your local newspaper is nowhere near as impactful as what I hear about on Frugalous.
I think the cafe is where the action is. I think that your $15,000 an hour film crew can’t beat my Flip Mino and a personal touch.
Should Big Businesses Play?
Yes, if they are ready, I say that big businesses should play. But, take a look at Mitch Joel’s thoughts on whether or not your company might be ready. If you can’t answer that list, then maybe you’re not ready for the cafe.
Dell has brilliantly executed Digital Nomads as a content marketing platform around a specific product niche. It works because we’re here and they’re talking to us in our language. Will other companies have it so easy? Scott Monty at Ford is trying hard to help them move the Ford Flex into our hearts via his social media efforts. Will it work?
The cafe-shaped conversations that we are finding through social media are more meaningful, more impactful, and have a chance to spread and overtake other mass methods. And yet, they need tending. It’s like watching a small cafe pour an espresso versus getting a cup of joe at the local McDonalds. Completely different value propositions from the start.
Are there places for both? Sure. Should we throw out everything mass and switch to everything cafe? No.
So in the end, the question is more this: where should we employ cafe-shaped conversations (social media) and what should the desired results be? I have some thoughts. What are yours?
Photo credit, Shahram Sharif
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Nice article Chris.
I agree that switching over from 100% mass media won’t work. Mainly because not every consumer is wrapped up in Social Media, so they would miss out on the offerings, just like they are now. They’re not worried about deals on wordpress templates, or 100 dollar hosting plans for an entire year, ect.
With social media, it works with the smaller businesses because we’re crafting our efforts and being helpful first (at least I hope we all are). From there, the trust comes into play and when people trust you, your thoughts and your recommendations, it makes the selling aspect much easier.
Thanks for the Post Chris, Very Impactful.
I have a new appreciation for social media, and its resemblance of a intimate cafe setting :)
With social Media and with other products and services that “level the playing field ” - we are moving towards more fragmentation. Customization I think would be the rule.
As you have mentioned in this lucid post - cafe shaped conversations would be the norm. It Definitely wont mean the end of mass marketing, as there will always be some products and services which may not be amenable to customization.
Using Twitter as framework for my comment,
imagine this; it’s up to the listener who they are,
and what type of conversation my words fit in.
Let’s say I twitter something important.
A beginner marketer, talking to a couple friends on
skype shares my link, and they discuss it-cafe style.
Makes a big difference for them; they’re edified.
But so does Evan Williams, and he shares that anecdote
at the Googleplex the next day to a power group,
all of whom jump on their iPhones to see Ed’s link.
“It’s the content stupid”
I learned this advertising lobsters.
Bill Clinton saw the ad and walked in with the
Secret Service and bought me out.
And then a very poor old woman walked in behind him,
who had also seen the ad, and bought her elderly husband
a big lobster for his birthday.
Same words-diametrically opposite market.
I was the same guy to both before the sale.
ALL of the above is true, non fiction.
*Except Ev repeated some nugget I said somewhere else.
I don’t think it was at the big G(?)
Everytime I go to Paris I see CocaCola advertisements on umbrellas over those tables. When I went to Mexico, I saw the same thing. When I went to China, I saw the same thing.
Maybe business is ALL about those cafe-sized conversations but we’ve just been missing it all along?
I have ways that major brands can engage with fairly large numbers four people at a time. I am the umbrella brand. :-)
I’ll say this, Chris. You are always thought provoking.
I’m taking my company into the social media world for the first time.
Will it move heaven and earth? I don’t know.
But it sure will help our Google results pretty dramatically. My few-months-old modestly attended blog has already improved our standings.
If there’s a powerful way to get atop Google with your own content that *isn’t* social media, I’d like to learn what it is.
Joe Hage
Chris, have you heard me speak lately? : )
Anytime someone asks me what I think of Facebook-I compare it to a coffee shop! What kind of etiquette would apply when you run into someone at a coffee shop.
Would you slam them with your business card? Of course not.
Would you start a conversation like a human being? Absolutely.
Love how this builds on my theory.
P.S. I just went back and read Mitch Joel’s thoughts.
I emphatically agree about transparency and dialogue versus “a new platform to say the same thing in the same way.”
That part will be an interesting evolution for the company and I’m happy to be the champion that gets them there.
It may take time.
Indeed, your image of the cafe fits with my experience. What I think I see is that the quality of the conversations through these media streams has the ability to shape, change and influence. Yes, there is a lot of white noise (reminded of Charlie Brown listening to his teacher go blah-blah-blah-blah)but when two or two dozen focus and connect in these ‘cafes’…well, watch out world.
I think what it comes down to is communicating with people however it is they want to be communicated with. In addition to mass communicating to drum up general awareness from potential visitors, I communicate regularly with thousands of loyal passholders ranging from young children to seniors with interests including skiing, hiking, fine dining, wildlife science and more.
I use mass marketing channels, direct marketing channels, online marketing channels, out of home, point of purchase, and social media and each has its place. I can tell you plenty of people get downright angry when we have a sales promotion and they miss it because they didn’t hear about it.
Do I use all these communication tools in the way people say I should? Not necessarily. I do use a corporate twitter account as an announcement tool but try to be open about who I am so if people really do want to have a conversation with *me* about my company, I’m happy to oblige. *I* think that’s what my customers want; I’m not sold that they want to chat with my company representatives on twitter.
Further, there are still plenty of people out there who actually still want us to send direct mail to their house. So a few co-workers and I are on twitter and a few of us are on Facebook, but we engage when people are seeking answers. If they’re just happily chatting amongst themselves, I try not to barge in.
I agree that it’s just about genuine conversation - and hopefully most businesses are doing just that face to face as well as online, but some people want to talk with us, and many still want to know what we’re doing. And as a marketer I believe my job is to find a way to make it easy for people to find the information they want, nothing more and nothing less, and in a way that suits them.
“Customization I think would be the rule”
It means more, smaller markets, personalization, and better opportunities for the little guy.
the big guys will gain from this by making stuff for the little guys.
like ‘Digital normads’
Perfect case study: Ben & Jerry’s
A good friend of mine used to run sales for them. It was all about placement in the freezer section—still is. They didn’t need TV. The only print they did was co-op. It was “word of mouth” and what shoppers saw when they stood in front of the ice cream section. And yes, it helped if they dominated the “region”.
“Cafe-shaped conversations” are the internet’s “word of mouth”—a critical part of every brands marketing strategy. And because of the speed at which these “digital conversation” happen its critical that every business, big or small, is represented.
Blogs, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter…it’s the new neighborhood!
Note: I’m a Graphic Designer and I’ve been involved in creating “visual communications” for over 15 years. How has social networking changed the focus Graphic Design? Well, I wrote an article for “Fuel Your Creativity” about this this past month. You can read it here: http://www.fuelyourcreativity.com/enteringyourhometown
I love every small town cafe in Tuscany, in Umbria, in Cinque Terra, in Germany,in Napa and most recently Boulder and Denver, Co for all the reasons you point out above. I walked into a coffee shop in Colorado and spontaneously ran into Gwen Bell and Dave Taylor working in their “offices”. I think they likely develop some of the best blog content there.
In Steven Covey’s 8th Habit, he speaks of us leaving the age of technology and entering the age of Wisdom. He describes this period in many ways but one of the things directly related to your post is that humans want more satisfying and real, direct relationships with coworkers, friends and family. He predicts that times will revert and be more like history when people were business owners working out of their homes and had more direct contact with their families and neighbors (old day butcher is today’s internet marketer). This ties directly to the cafe conversation you discuss above. The 8th habit defined is “Finding Your Voice and Helping Others Find Their Own Voice” and what he means is following your passion. What an exciting time we are living huh?
Angie
Social Media Evangelist
@aaswartz on Twitter
Mass media won’t go away, its the way the big boys play. Cafe style marketing works for the small business, probably because it fits our budgets much better.
I remember when CocaCola brought out New Coke in the late 70’s. A lot of people we’re angry about it and CocaCola reintroduced Original Coke, and they’re still around. If I make a blunder like that in my business, make customers angry, I’m out of business.
Social media marketing works, and it really works well in small business because we interact consistently on a personal level with customers.
I believe that both are valid and both are necessary and that the “gold” resides in getting the two to work together. Mass media marketing for the million customers who just need a small push or an inkling that they need what ever you’re selling. Social media for those who need / desire a more personal touch before handing over their hard earned cash. The both need to reside and one can feed off of the other.
Cafe-shaped conversations could accomplish something far greater IF more eyes were open to a totally different way of seeing. Think living rurally, shopping locally, communities of like-minded thinkers in the real (physical) world.
The world would be a far different place if more people lived in that “real” world and supported their communities instead of multi-national corporations. It might not be too late.
Could any of the mega brands have formed/started in the social media world? Apple, Coke, Pepsi, Microsoft, McDonalds, Etc …
I would agree that the intimate converstaions amongst close friends, family and potentially a trusted online network of people is what truely impacts decisions to buy, join, play, participage, etc … but i’d also say that this has been true since the begining of human interaction.
New media is amazing and add’s a whole new element to marketing, branding and overall company identiy … bringing things to a much more personal level (if used correctly) but I’d say that it’s “in addition to” not a replacement for.
@Chris … you need to get to Paris man!! It is very much like you described … small resturants, cafes, shops all over the place … each with it’s own identity and ‘family’ of people hangin’ out.
@scobleizer … your so right. “CocaCola advertisements on umbrellas over those tables” …, but CocaCola is not even the thing that most people go there for … people go for the wine, the food, the atmosphere, etc … (That seems to be a good example of Coke trying to join the more intimate conversation)
—
http://twitter.com/franswaa
Brilliant post. The Cafe Conversation is what’s here and what’s next. I think we can all testify to the power of the Cafe Conversation in President Elect Obama’s campaign and current communication strategy. It is the place to be for anyone who has information, advocacy campaigns, services, and products that they want to share on a massive level.
It’s been a few years since I read Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, but it’s coming to mind after reading these comments. I think one could argue that Tzu’s book is as much about shaping conversations as it is anything else.
Awesome Post. And Excellent comment by Ananda Leeke. Cafe Conversations spread - have very high degree of trust and are portable.
DELL wants to create a Social Media Alert system for Deals - to reach customers via Cafe Conversations (obviously based on their permission).
If Home Depot continues Mass Shouting without having Cafe Conversations - Ikea might steal their customers under their nose. I think both forms of advertising are critical - with each complementing and supplementing each other.
Lot’s of talk these days about Cafes, Tribes, Civic Societies, sharing and conversation. If you keep your eyes peeled you see it everywhere, growing, spreading, connecting. Thanks for sharing great post and interesting comments.
I think cafe conversations are great for products and services that aren’t largely fungible. When you’ve got something that’s cool, new, quirky, edgy, niche or highly-differentiated, word of mouth and cafe conversations work well.
But, what about mass-consumer products? How easy would it be to get serious cafe conversation buzz around Heinz 57 ketchup moving to plastic bottles or Tide getting clothes 1% whiter?
No doubt, cafe convo’s are a killer tool for building awareness, buzz and community for a lot of products and services, but, for other well-established mass consumer brands that are poorly differentiated…not so much.
Maybe, the real lesson in this it’s time for these brands to introduce new reasons to get people talking about them.
I agree completely with cafes and tribes. My personal variation in explaining social media to brands is to think of any social media space as a coktail party. Folks are gathered in a single space standing in their own circles having different conversations. Too many brands walk in with a bullhorn and start shouting. Smart organizations are figuring out how to create teams that can listen and engage in an appropriate way. The toughest challenge though is figuring out if these conversations with 1, 10 or 100 people are worth the effort.
My company has historically eschewed traditional mass advertising for our consumer products (although our dealers often question that decision), instead preferring to use grass-roots methods and co-op dealer funds to reach potential customers. As we’re still a small player one of our categories we don’t have the advertising budget the big boys have, yet we’ve been a little slow to come of the table with regards to internet advertising and using that platform for customer interaction. Your post does a great job of putting words to my thoughts and will help me explain why we should add social media to our mix.
Thanks for the excellent post. I’ve been on Twitter for a bit over a year and it’s one of the first places I visit to get a recommendation. I’ve given and received advice, and Twitter recommendations have heavily influenced my purchases of service or merchandise.
Social Media platforms like Twitter are a powerful medium. Small and large businesses alike would do well in (tactfully) embracing these channels to reach their customers.
I think a blend of Jonathan and Katrina’s idea are really the crux of what I was thinking. The big guys might not do as well here. The little or quirky guys? They will excel. So have we uncovered the right tool for the right audience? And if so, when will the big guys stop looking at the tools?
I agree that Social Media is the future. However, I think large companies are going to start adapting it much faster than you think.
I know there are large corporations who are looking to build their own social networks within the corporation.
And do you know what the best part is? All you need is one large corporation to do it.
@ Derek - I’m not so sure. I was just having dinner with a friend who’s very high up in a mega-corp and when the convo turned to social media, he literally shut down and said they recently looked at and made a strict policy decision to ban it in all forms and let every employee know “it wouldn’t be tolerated.”
But, here’s the thing…and it’s a valid argument…it’s not just about a lack of products and services that are good fits for social media. Big companies are perpetually freaked out about the potential legal exposure that could be created by every comment made by every employee who might be seen as speaking on behalf of the company.
They weight that against the potential benefits of cafe conversation and social media almost always comes out on the losing end of the cost benefit analysis.
So, it’s not just about the value of social media when it comes to big companies, it’s about it’s value in light of the potential legal exposure. It’d be nice if companies didn’t have to go down that road, but, fact is, especially if you operate in the U.S., you do.
So, it’s not just a lack of understanding about value or suitability, but also a broader cost-benefit analysis that’s a major barrier to SM adoption in mega-co’s.
In the library world, we’ve been focusing on “the stories” - the interactions between library patrons and staff, the stories behind why people use the library, etc. That’s one way that helps traditionally-minded staff figure out why we should use social media.
But it works both ways, and here’s where big media marketing intersects with your cafe idea. Big media marketing needs to start using those real stories, with real people. Get rid of the celebrity/actor in the commercial. Focus on the story, and how your product results in a better story, therefore a better life, for customers.
Bingo.
You’ve articulated in one article what I am trying to convey to clients each day! Consumers are smart and empowered. They want those big companies to engage in dialogue. Companies who wait too long to value the place social media has in its marketing mix are missing the boat.
Well, if you flip it 180 degrees and have another look at it, you will only see one question.
That question is simple, “Why?”
Why would I even want these marketing folks entering into my social media space?
A few of them have managed to act human, but not very many. Mostly, they all see it as another place to perform their shotgun marketing.
I don’t “need” a whole bunch, and I certainly don’t “need” more people trying to sell me something.
Using the image that you posted here, do you think that they would invite a 3rd person to join them, if that person were only there to bide his/her time until the opportunity to pitch their product/service came around?
Certainly I love to meet-n-greet new people all of the time, but I really only like it when they are able to NOT talk about what they do or what they sell.
I recently tried having a Twitter conversation with the chief marketing officer of Best Buy @BestBuyCMO
Here’s what I said, “Your Blue Shirts don’t know anything. I always tell them “NO!” when they ask if they can help me. They are clueless about tech.
The Blue Shirts are really good at coming up with answers, but they are the wrong answers.
Check your store return records for “Wrong part” or “Not compatible” - your Blue Shirts cause that to be way too high.
Of course, as a “marketing guy” you probably have no real interest in fixing the system, just keeping the sales up. Sure, ok.”
His Response was, “Guess I don’t understand why you feel like I warrant being personally slammed. First time I’ve been insulted here.Congratulations”
So I said, “Hey Barry, it comes with your position. Perhaps nobody ever tells you what they really think. No congratulations required.
Obvious to everyone else your answer should have been “‘Yes, BB has many problems, I’ll see what I can do’.
And lastly, as you blogged in Oct, “it starts with being open and transparent.” I was, and you got insulted. Go Figure.”
So, before he Blocked me he said, “Your 4 tweet criticism of our company was fine. And we will be better for it. The personal attack is unjustified. My POV. I’m Done”
There you have it - an attempt to be transparent and when faced with anything other that “ra-ra fanboys” he tucks tail and plays the “personal attack” card.
So, whatever, the marketing people should just stay out and play their little spin games. The people in social media for real, are for the most part too smart for them anyhow.
The disparity between cafe conversations and mass communication is as much about tone and intent as it is about the medium.
Cafe conversations are personal, more intimate, more familiar and focused. By their very nature, mass communications are generically focused, more into a one-size-fits-all approach to capture the biggest amount of ears in order to up the odds that the right people are captured in the funnel. It’s a top down approach: drag the net wide.
Cafe conversations are a bottom up approach, and they bring up the oh-so-touchy notion of scalability in social media. I doubt very much that you’d find a Fortune 500 CEO who’d say that he doesn’t *want* to have more personalized, cafe-shaped conversations with customers, because I don’t think they’d argue that more tuned in conversations are the ideal. The trouble is that you need an army to do that. A large, dedicated, driven army that’s paying attention to millions of people in chunks of hundreds at a time. That’s a pretty tall order.
So to me, the question is how we take conversation and communication at volume, and treat it with the *intent* of a cafe-shaped conversation. Rather than settling for the fact that mass = impersonal, can we find a way to adjust how we talk to and inspire the masses on a personal level? Can we talk a level above our product features and benefits and touch on more human elements that, by default, foster affinity for the people behind a company? Can we talk to millions at a time but find a voice that’s far more personal and communicates the value of the relationships over the transactions? And ultimately, are we building from the bottom up, or distilling from the top down?
Hi Chris,
Good question and great insights.
I agree that social media will not necessarily replace mass media. Social media should be part of the marketing mix.
I think that most companies (especially the big ones) do not give enough credance to social media because they probably do not understand yet the use and the benefits. When you do not participate actively in the conversation, you may wonder what’s the hullabaloo about social media…!
That being said, companies (CPG) invest in grassroots marketing, sponsorships, street and experiential marketing - which are local initiatives, resticted to a smaller amount of people. In comparison to these kinds of campaigns, a company can reach a lot more people on Twitter - more than they think really. The challenging point is that they will have to learn a new communication channel and more importantly, how to engage that audience.
We are trying to fit two different models of the marketing universe into each other. Different feet, different shoes.
One model, the Fully Automatic Model, is all about large mass: mass production, mass consumption, mass assembly, mass distribution, mass scale, mass automation, mass communication. The kind of conversation within that model is mostly unilateral and not very flexible. Invest big dollars and you can (mostly) let the process takes care of itself.
The other model, the Fully Organic Model, is all about grassroots, connection, word-of-mouth, micro-niche, human element, long-tail, collaboration, instant communication, social context. The kind of conversation within that model is Cafe-Shaped and it’s mostly bilateral and flexible. Invest small dollars but you need to tend more fully to the garden.
Even though we are probably moving away from the Fully Automatic to the Fully Organic, I don’t think one is necessarily more appropriate than the other. Smart people know what tools work for which tasks.
For large-scale markets, the cost of abandoning the Fully Automatic model can be too great.
For small scale markets, the cost of embracing the Fully Automatic model can be to great.
Those businesses which understand the utility and relevance of each model are going to be the ones that thrive. Large enterprises that are smart will know how to incorporate the Organic model into their strategy. For those organizations, Twitter won’t be a primary sounding platform: but it will provide an opportunity to drop by the Cafe when it’s appropriate: Social strategies could help large enterprises be more osmotic and less entrenched in their walled-in gardens.
Likewise, small enterprises still can take advantage of the Automatic model: there’s advantage, for example, in using the right kind of mass-advertising to help boost an already established WOM campaign.
The bridge between these two models is human connection. If each can ensure safe, effective and meaningful human connection, then enterprises will do well in either medium if used appropriately.
I am in total agreement with your thoughts, Chris. Although I find Twitter to be a real bore at most times, I often find sparks of conversations there that lead me to explore bigger and better things. The social contacts I have made in the short time I have been using Twitter is nothing short of amazing. I find it easy to relate because of what you term “cafe-shaped conversations.” Very apt…
Peace,
Alden~
amen! Cafe conversations are the perfect metaphor for the communication taking place. Mass media will always be there because of the culture we live in. Social media will enhance and even accelerate the media process, but I do not believe will ever totally replace it. There is a shift occuring in the media and it is powerful. “Cocktail conversations” is another way that social media operates. But the power of social media I believe has yet to be totally understood as it is still in the “diaper stage” of growth in the marketplace. There is much evolvement to come that could change the game in the future. Rocking hot post Chris.
Chris, I love your insight!
While I agree: the big guys aren’t set up to play in this arena, I think they are going to have to learn how to.
More and more attention is being shifted from mass/traditional media to the social web. People are watching less TV and spending more time watching online videos. People are reading fewer newspapers and reading more blogs. As communities, audiences and people’s attention become increasingly fragmented and granular, it will be essential for big brands to learn how to break things down into smaller pieces that are digestible among the democratized landscape of the social web.
Given all of the research that tells us WOM from friends and family is the most trusted source of information, and the ability of the social web to amplify word of mouth exponentially, it’s a lucrative nut for large and small brands alike to crack. There tons plenty examples of big brands that have leveraged social media effectively: Legos, Dell, P&G, Blendtec, Mini to name a few. I think, as many here in the comments have suggested, social media is still in it’s infancy, and we are just beginning to understand what works.
There are also economic benefits for larger organizations. Sure, it takes more time and more planning to break marketing down into smaller pieces for smaller audiences/communities, but it’s still hands-down less expensive than more traditional means that include pricey ad buys and enormous production budgets.
Chris,
I have been to Paris. To take your point of neighborhood even further, I dined in a neighborhood street-level cafe.
The menu was actual fresh food available for cooking, displayed under glass next to the chef’s kitchen fully viewable from the tables and chairs. Fish, chicken, beef and pasta all available and supremely fresh.
After ordering my meal, I noted the surroundings. Groups of people at tables in deep conversations. Flower-girl walking around with fresh flowers for sale. Newspaper salesperson walking through the cafe. A lot of foot traffic, mostly vendors during the meal. Food was delivered promptly, and was fresh and delicious.
The bill? $3.50 cents (the Franc was 9.5 for each US dollar!). A sense of community existed in this place, unlike the typical American cafe with a news-paper-racks outside, no flower vendor, and a noisy rushed atmosphere inside.
I came away from the meal with a sense that we were missing something back home.
Respectfully,
Nicholas Chase - ‘the video guy’ from BlogWorld Expo 2008
http://donotreadthisblogunless.blogspot.com/
I like the umbrella metaphor. But think about that umbrella. Is it marking it’s place loudly? It perhaps is a loud visual, but in the interaction of being a part of the cafe conversation, it is but part of the tapestry. Non obtrusive and even useful; it’s an umbrella…keeps the sun out and light rain even. (the useful part is what i’m interested in.) so if the big companies can jump in …dedicate a portion of their strategy to SM, represent themselves in human fashion (not autobot style) and be part of the tapestry–and provide themselves as useful, then be my guest. share my cafe-shaped experience with me. but if we end up with an annoying big company cookie cutter SM presence that’s just plain intrusive, then we should all just be find to let this be a playground for grassroots and smaller world changing businesses.
p.s. LOVE the cafe-shaped phrase. well coined (and well explained too)! (you shall be famous in no time) (oh wait, you already are!)
I noticed a similar trend, purchasing out of necessity vs impulse, when I studied abroad in the UK.
London actually represents both sides of the spectrum with friends gathering at pubs and local sandwich shops … or shopping in some of the most pricey ‘mass marketed’ shops like FCUK, etc.
I notice more web and brick/mortar businesses expanding into new ‘verticals’ (a smaller example being Fandango.com purchasing Movies.com to reach movie goers and movie renters).
I’ll be interested to see large businesses integrate social media ‘cafe conversation’ messages -into- their mass media buys, even just to test the waters.
Insightful writing, Cheers!
I think cafe conversations should take place all the time. The big company talking to the consumer. The small business interacting with their “big” niche…whatever it may be. The really successful companies that are out there on the edge and flourising are using social media to engage their customers and make interactions more personal. It’s all about “me”.
Re: “I don’t think social media just plugs into the marketing mix, though sometimes others prove me wrong.”
I think it very much plugs in and needs to piggy back on existing strategies, and shouldn’t be a strategy of its own. Cafe-shaped conversations are just as important as larger-scale conversations, they just cultivate people on a more personal and deeper level. But, companies aren’t going to ditch their larger-scale efforts and put all their baguettes into cafe conversations - it’s not economically feasible.
I have a blog post forthcoming with more thoughts on this and hope I can prove you wrong. :)
@Rachel - yes, and of course you’re right. It’s PART of the marketing mix but it’s not the same as the other larger scale efforts. It’s a condiment or a side dish alongside the larger tools — that is, for larger companies.
Thankfully, Steven Hodson helped me form my thoughts into an even tighter ball.
What does it mean that when I’m sitting in a cafe, speaking softly with my friends about what I ought to eat, I’m still frantically scanning the menu looking at all the options?
My guess is that (for the big guys) it might be pretty hard to scale DOWN. But even if they do, I’m still going to lean over to the next table and ask someone sitting there what they’re having and why.
Hodson is right when he talks about Tinker Toys: Maybe big business will just have to concentrate on the hubs and completely ignore the bigger picture.
There is a strong gray area between the cafe and the megamall. While Digital Nomads has driven mass attention in a social (cafe) type platform, there is something to be said for many-to-many conversations parcelled out by unique voice.
In today’s social world, it would be a sound investment for brand to embed their employees as personalities in social marketing. Trained, outward facing enthusiasts can easily become credible voices in their respective target communities. For example, moms with motrin could have created a credible presence long ago, one that would have softened the impact of motrinmoms. And sure, Motrin has other target segments, but those could easily be addressed in much the same manner.
Intimate scalability may seem an oxymoron, but can strategically implimented with strong leadership.
What’s interesting about social media is that while conversations are going on at (digital) cafes all around the world, companies can ‘listen’ to most, if not all of those conversations (with the proper tools in place of course) and then jump in at the right time with relevant and useful information.
It’s like if you sat down with a friend at a cafe, and then when one of you said ‘Coke should make a mango flavored soda’, a Coke rep showed up and said ‘We tried that and it tasted horrible!’ or ‘What a great idea. We’ll give it a shot and blog about it when we do.’ and then stuck around just long enough to see if you wanted to keep talking about Coke or if you were ready to move on to another topic.
As with anything, this could obviously get taken too far to the point where it becomes annoying and invasive, but hopefully companies will realize that there are times and places when and where people want to be approached, and times and places when and where they do not, and will act accordingly.
Admittedly, I just scanned all the comments, so if someone has already said this, sorry, but the reason the cafe concept works is because it’s small. I blogged about it a month ago here: http://passingthru.com/2008/10/small/
Small is important because people need to feel they matter. The commenter who talked about tweeting with Best Buy’s marketing guy gets it. BB’s Marketing Boy doesn’t. As long as marketers don’t get that people crave feeling like they’re worth something to somebody, they may sell product, but the impersonal transaction is all they’re going to get. Big companies do well to rely upon individual salespeople who have the wherewithal and the empowerment to interact in a stand-up way with their sub-tribe of customers. Imagine if Best Buy’s marketing guy started treating the Blue Shirts as adults, empowering them within their bailiwick to run a micro-business that is housed under BB’s roof?
Sub-tribes always form within larger tribes once critical mass is reached. I’m betting we’re going to see a host of new companies form who are more than content to stay small and connected. Howard Lindzon talks about being “too small to fail.”
I just keep reading this post and the comments, over and over.
I posted a quickly drafted response at my own little piece of cyber real estate (I don’t know why it didn’t show up here as a trackback/pingback, but you can click my name and look for “Baguettes”) but the more I think about this, well, the more I think about it. I’m going to need to do a follow up!
One interesting comparison that I can make from personal experience is that in the uber-small company (9 employees) that I work for now, we WANT to use social media but we have a hard time finding the budget and personnel to allow the time (although we did create a blog, a DIGG account for sharing news, a Feedburner account for promotion/tracking, etc). At the company that I used to work for, a fairly small (6000 employees worldwide) company but a huge player (45% market share or better) in their field, I was refused a LinkedIn recommendation by my friend and former boss based on “company policy”. This company clearly has the budget available, but lacks the understanding.
Good stuff, Chris. This meshes with thoughts I’ve been having about the social history of communications media. We’ve always had personal media (private conversations, personal letters, one-to-one phone calls, etc.), and we’ve always had narrowcast media (town criers, sermons, speeches, etc.). It’s only in the past couple-hundred years or so that we’ve had appreciable mass media, and it was in the 20th century that Big Business learned to harness it.
Social media as we usually conceive of it lends itself to personal and narrowcast media — your “cafe” conversations. I wonder how much it will evolve to achieve mass-media ends, and how much mass-media users (esp. Home Depot et al., as you say) will evolve to use it at the personal & narrowcast levels.
It’s worth thinking about one more element: how Big Business can already tap or enable or promote *many* personal or narrowcast conversations around its offerings, thus achieving scale without trying to force the social media to perform like mass media. (At this point, cue standard references to the Fiskateers program and so on.)
Big questions worth pursuing — good on yer for continuing to raise them.
Can’t believe the way your words mesh with the things I’ve been trying to do with the tourism industry and addressing the needs of climate change. These blogs were set up as cafés to have just the conversations you are writing about.
http://www.tourismcafe.ca
http://www.climatecafe.org
The social web isn’t about creating the next big thing, it’s about creating space for intimate conversations about things that matter.
It isn’t about having 30,000 twitter followers or 100 comments on your friendfeed post, it’s about having one or two conversations that matter.
Excellent post and such insight into the nature of what’s happening online ;-)
Another brilliant post, Chris. Thanks!
As Community Tech Steward of the World Café, I know that conversation about things that matter is not only good marketing strategy, but one of the keys to human survival. It is conversation (on a number of levels) that will in large part carry us through the formidable global challenges that stand before us now. And online communication tools like the ones you’ve mentioned will no doubt make a contribution.
How exciting it will be to have a President who really understands the power of the individual voice … I can’t wait to see how Obama’s presidency will effect participatory citizenship and this whole area of online interaction as a cultural meme that goes beyond digital natives and “geeky types” like us.
But back to business, what we’re calling Café Conversations (small intimate interactions that can connect with and feed into larger collective awareness) are important to large and small companies for reasons that go beyond product sales and marketing.
Conversation is now becoming recognized as a core business competency and World Cafés are hosted in corporations just as often as they are with health and educational institutions, government, neighborhood groups, and anywhere else that conversation can increase communication, address challenges or help build a sense of community. It’s only a matter of time until more and more of these conversations are happening online.
You’ve probably noticed that more and more conferences are moving to an interactive model, based on Cafe Conversations. Increasingly, conference organizers are realizing that attendees are tired of “talking heads”. There is so much more to be gained by an approach that calls on the collective intelligence gathered in the room, and engages in a conversation between the “experts” and those in the audience (who are often equally as knowledgeable).
So what I’m saying is that there’s an analogy here that expands the power of conversation and online communications out beyond marketing and product sales, and it’s still just in the beginning stages. I look forward to hearing more from you on where you think this is all going.
Amy
Excellent view point, Chris. I absolutely think there is, and always will be a place for both styles of “marketing,” and that the big corps will slowly conform and start spending more and more money on social media. in the not too distant future, I envision them hiring teams of people to “work” the social cafe’s.
Chris,
I agree with you all the way on this one. I think it’s really exciting. It is leveling off the playing field (for those that get this), especially for small business owners and artists. They are starting to be able to complete with these giant corp’s simply because (as you said) ” I think that your $15,000 an hour film crew can’t beat my Flip Mino and a personal touch.” It doesn’t matter how big your budget is anymore, everyone is starting to have equal opportunity to reach their niche communities. So if you are not getting involved in “Cafe-Shaped Conversations”… why not?!
Chris, thanks being so great at explaining social media in simple terms that people can easily understand.