Tapping the Groundswell (65- 194)

Notes:
- POST method (people, objectives, strategy, and technology) is the foundation of groundswell thinking- a systematic framework for assembling your plan. (67)
- 5 objectives companies can pursue in groundswell- listening, talking, energizing, supporting, embracing
- Suggestions for thinking through a strategy:
Create a plan that starts small but has room to grow
Think through the consequences of your strategy
Put somebody important in charge of it
Use great care in selecting you technology and agency partners

Listening:
- 2 "listening" strategies: set up your own private community and begin brand monitoring
- Reasons to listen to groundswell:
Find out what you brand stands for
Understand how buzz is shifting
Save research money; increase research responsiveness
Find the sources of influence in your market
Manage PR crises
Generate new product and marketing ideas
- Suggestions to help succeed in listening to groundswell:
Check the Social Technographics Profile of your customers
Start small, think big (single brand monitoring)
Make sure your listening vendor has dedicated an experienced team to your effort
Choose a senior person to interpret the information and integrate it with other sources

Talking:
- The Marketing Funnel- "in traditional marketing theory, consumers are driven into the big end through awareness activities like advertising. They proceed through stages- including consideration, preference, and action- to become buyers. Marketers have little control over what happens in the middle stages, but the influence of the groundswell is heaviest there (101)."

EYEBALLS --> (awareness, consideration, preference, action, loyalty) --> BUYERS

-Techniques for talking:
Post a viral video
Engage in social networks and user-generated content sites
Join the blogosphere
Create a community
- Deciding if using social networking sites to talk with your customers:
Use the STP to verify that your customers are in social networks
Move forward if people love your brand
See what's out there already
Create a presence that encourages interaction