As a social media marketer with Powered, Greg Verdino recommends "micromarketing" strategies to clients. In his book, microMARKETING, Greg shares with all of us his thinking behind why marketers need to shift our actions from mass to micro in order to realize the benefits of "tapping into the power of the few to reach to the many" through using social media.
To help promote his book, Greg is "tapping into the power of the few to reach to the many" by having 20 or so bloggers post chapter-by-chapter reviews. (More details here.) I'm reviewing chapter 9, From the One Big Thing to the Right Small Things.
To illustrate this point, Greg tells us the Cinderella story of Lauren Luke, a self-taught make-up artist.
In 2007, Lauren worked as a taxi dispatcher by day and as an eBay entrepreneur by night selling makeup brushes. To promote her brushes, Lauren started posting make-up tutorials on YouTube. Her most viewed tutorial shows how to get the smoky eye look made popular by Leona Lewis' "Bleeding Love" video. That one video tutorial has nearly 4-million views today and has forever changed Lauren's life.
Soon after posting the Leona Lewis smoky eye tutorial video, Lauren caught the attention of a marketing company who pitched the idea of starting a By Lauren Luke cosmetic product line. In 2009, Sephora, a big-time national cosmetics store chain, began selling the By Lauren Luke cosmetics line.
A Cinderella story indeed... but let's look at this from a different angle.
Thanks to social media, Lauren Luke was able to go from small-time to big-time. And thanks to social media, big-time companies can regain their small and meaningful connections with customers. As I've said before...
“Social media helps small companies look bigger and helps big companies get smaller. Meaning, a small company can have a big presence online with customers through using social media. Conversely, a big company can get ‘smaller’ because social media connects companies to customers on a very personal level.” -- JOHN MOORE
In the pages of microMARKETING, Greg Verdino identifies "seven shifts" happening in marketing because of social media. He shares examples how small companies, like By Lauren Luke, are using smartly using these "seven shifts" brought on by social media to look bigger.
Interestingly, these "seven shifts" Verdino has identified can also be used by big companies to get smaller by being more personal with customers.
Verdino shows how Coca-Cola gets smaller in customers' eyes/minds through social media using its Facebook fan page. The Ford Fiesta Movement is highlighted as a way to develop micro relationships with bloggers to get macro awareness. Verdino also shows how Best Buy gets smaller by providing one-to-one customer service on Twitter through the Best Buy Twelpforce team.
No matter the size of your company, for it to grow bigger you must start getting smaller in how you connect with current and future customers. That's the lesson learned from chapter 9 of Greg Verdino's microMARKETING book. And that's the challenge businesses have today in order to succeed tomorrow.
DISCLOSURE: I'm an avid business book reader and because I blog frequently about business books, publishers will send me free copies. That explained, I purchased my copy of microMARKETING for this review.
