Check out this article then come back here so we can discuss…

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So what does this mean for you evil marketers out there? Not only should you think about contingencies (come on, they released electronic versions of their books, and didn’t have the foresight to see that they could be pirated?!), you should also look at it from the side of the competition. Big companies anger their customers all the time. This could be a huge opportunity for your little known brand to step up to the plate and knock it out of the park.

If you notice a competitor doing something annoying, you can really set yourself apart by leveraging this and taking an opposite action (and of course, don’t forget to announce it to the world). Barnes and Noble and Borders both use a customer loyalty card. However, Barnes and Noble charges for theirs while Borders doesn’t. Guess which one I have in wallet? My favorite book store, Half-Price Books doesn’t even offer a customer loyalty card, but that’s probably a different discussion.

I’ve been talking alot about social media and online marketing. Why not? Everyone’s doing it now. Unfortunately many are doing a poor job at it. It’s not enough to just have a facebook fan page, twitter account, a youtube account, etc. You must create community, otherwise it’s a waste of time. So what if you post videos of satisfied customers, or announce a new promotion. It doesn’t matter if no one is looking at your content. I’ve visited many corporate social media sites, and many of them simply post commercials, promotions, and/or testimonials. Who cares really? I mean, the only reason I look is because I’m a marketer, and I’m interested in how companies are promoting themselves online. However, as a consumer, I don’t care.

I was going to post something about one of my favorite brands, but I think I’m going to go in a different direction, ‘cause I’m just evil like that. Let’s take a look at one of my “favorite” booksellers, Barnes and Noble. They do some decent marketing every now and then, but their youtube site is garbage. So what do they have on their youtube channel? Exactly what you’d expect, interviews with authors, and not much else. It’s no secret that Barnes and Noble is a huge brand, so I’d expect them to have tons of subscribers. As I write this, they have a total of 287 subscribers, and I’m wondering just how many of those subscribers are actually employed by the company. This is what happens when you post the most boring content known to mankind on your site.

So what should they be posting? Well, in this case, I think they could post some interesting employee interactions, video of excited fans meeting their literary heroes in the store, a review program where they get random customers’ opinions, book recommendations (if you enjoyed this bestseller, here’s some other lesser known books you may enjoy), people getting busted for shoplifting, whatever really. As long as it’s interesting. If the content is good, maybe they would have more subscribers, and might actually be on their way to creating community.

It’s not just a problem with the big boys, smaller companies are also guilty of this. If you’re not going to post good, creative content then you really are not taking full advantage of the social media tools available. I could go on and on, and will probably discuss this again in the future, but I just got a new batch of books from the library and am ready to dig in. The bottom line, just having an account with these social media sites is not enough, doing what everyone else is doing with these sites will not differentiate you. Create excellent content

What’s the difference between Barnes and Noble and Borders? Comment below or email me. You know the address.