Like Me and Let the Conversation Continue
by Sundeep Kapur, Director Strategic Marketing-Ecommerce, NCR Corporation
You buy a cup of coffee and the cashier hands you a receipt with an incentive to join the company’s Facebook page. You’re not completely sure if you should. What the cashier forgot was that your order was messed up, you waited for more than 10 minutes, and the manager was not in the store. So what do you do?
You like the brand on Facebook only to tell all your friends about your bad experience. Isn’t it ironic that you have to like them to tell them that you really do not like them!
A complete stranger walks up to you in the parking lot and hands you a flyer. It is a coupon to your favorite store, plus a chance to win a digital reader. Would you give this stranger your phone number? Would you introduce the stranger to your family and friends? Would you invite the stranger into your home?
Yet the same thing happens online and you willingly become friends via an unknown brand ambassador – perhaps a sponsored story via a friend of a friend.
Soon, both brands, the coffee company and your favorite store start communicating with you as if they are your best friend. Offers pour in, they are personalized as if they know you, and they touch you more times in one week than you call your best friend Jill in one month!
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