David Lively, The Lively Merchant
The vague uneasiness, forehead-creasing confusion and general malaise I had been feeling were finally explained. It was February, 2004. My diagnosis was presented in 538 pages of small type, and I read every word to find out why the advertising that had worked so well in the past for my 50-year-old furniture store was no longer working at all.
It was a book called Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584-2069. Authors William Strauss and Neil Howe divided history into seasonal cycles that mold the generations of that era. Understanding the current cycle helps us understand the people around us, even to the point of forecasting cultural and societal trends for the next 60 years.
If history is any teacher (and I believe she is), every 40 years we reach a tipping point when leadership, influence and power transfer from the elder generation to the younger generation. The last tipping point occurred in 2003, when the Baby Boomers loosened their power ties and ceased striving for their “greed is good” mentality. Baby Boomers were idealists who worshipped heroes, perfect icons of beauty and success, like Clark Kent and James Bond.
Today’s youngest generation has the moniker of Millennials, or Generation Y, and they have a different view of what makes a hero. They see the icons of yesteryear as hyperbolic posed phonies. They reject all forms of pretense. Words like “amazing,” “astounding” and “spectacular” are translated “yada, yada, yada.” Their heroes are Gregory House and Jason Bourne, flawed characters unafraid to wear their broken hearts on their dirty sleeves.
It takes a while to tip. The transfer of power from Baby Boomers to Millennials was just completed in December 2008.
What does this mean in the furniture industry — and every other area of culture, for that matter? It means that the tried and true selling methods that worked only a year ago are working far less well today. There are new rules on what to say, how to say it and where to say it that will make or break your media’s effectiveness.
As history repeats itself, a new media phenomena called social media is transforming the marketing universe just like television and radio did in the 20th century. Now, as then, many retailers will take a “wait and see” attitude. Others will jump into the marketplace and become market leaders. The same fate awaits those who ignore social media as befell those who never embraced new electronic technologies that are old hats to us today.
So, what is it?
Besides newfangled delivery methods like email and text messaging, the primary difference between social media and traditional broadcast and print media is direction. If traditional media is a one-way street from the advertiser to the consumer, then social media is like the superhighway George Jetson rode to work. Information in a social media network moves back and forth, up and down and from side to side like space age cars of the future, unlimited by old-fashioned restrictions like print runs and postage costs.
Trevor Edwards, vice president at Nike, sums up social media perfectly. He says, “We’re not in the business of keeping media companies alive. We’re in the business of connecting with consumers!”
Social media uses a lot of funny sounding words and phrases like blogs, micro-blogs, online chat, RSS feeds, widgets, bookmarks, message boards, podcasts, video podcasts and wikis. The Daily Planet has been replaced with portals like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. Don’t worry; these terms will soon become as familiar to you as “first class mail” and “30-second spots.”
The impact of social media is dependent upon the starting mindset. Begin fresh, because your success depends upon it. Because change is often painful and frustrating, you will be tempted to look for shortcuts and try to take the principles of traditional media and apply them to social media thinking. It will not work.
Just ask the first pioneers of web-based marketing, who developed static sites that were centrally managed with little or no content change. These sites were “tech heavy” and unidirectional, telling customers what to believe and offering little to no opportunity for them to respond back.
Web 2.0 is completely different. Social media invites the customer to join the movement. These empowered customers communicate, connect, co-create, collect, categorize, customize and become communities.
Each of these “C’s” leads to the ultimate “C”: Change. The American people seem to want it, if recent elections are any indication, then furniture industry had better hop to it if we want to improve our own approval ratings.
Here is how it works:
Communication is always two-way and takes many forms such as blogs, podcasts, video blogs, photo sharing and video sharing. These require very little technical savvy or financial investment, yet they are far reaching with big impact. The challenge remains the same: developing worthy content. Lack of content has been the industry’s key weakness. The technology is surprisingly simple; knowing what to say is far more complicated. Industry experts love to tell you how to use social media technology to communicate while neglecting content development.
Connection allows the reader or viewer to comment, respond, rate or share your message. YouTube’s commentary, Amazon’s customer reviews and MySpace’s friend network show how social media reaches millions of members.
Co–created wikis are web pages that allow anyone to create or modify the content, and open source software allows users to use, change, modify and redistribute free applications. Consumers generate viral advertising to voluntarily pass along your marketing message.
Categorizing consists of tagging, social bookmarking and search engine marketing. Because of the nature of Web 2.0, we now have the ability to grade and communicate the outcomes of nearly every transaction that takes place online and offline.
Collective Wisdom is made up using rating sites, wikis like Wikipedia and social news services. Today you can subscribe to an RSS feed (Real Simple Syndication) to receive email notification when new content is posted for every subject under the sun. For example, I receive a daily feed from Google for the word “furniture.” Any post from around the world about furniture is delivered directly to my inbox.
Customization continues to make life online more personal. Widgets, avatars and RSS feeds all allow us to explore our unique interests. Widgets deliver specialized content, avatars can be made to look exactly like you or whoever you would like to look like while the RSS feed delivers exactly the content you’re interested in, while personalized home pages allow you to become your own web designer.
Conversation is the most easily understood aspect of the social media world. It’s easy to have a conversation with your customer today. Any website worth its salt will provide a place for customer feedback. Let your customer say whatever she wants, and be prepared to respond quickly. Remember that authenticity is the key to successful communication these days. Blogging, online journaling that combines the words “web log,” allows you to talk to your customer regularly (for free, I might add) and develop relationships that go deeper than price, product and promotion. If my 12 year old can manage her own blog, it should be attainable for your organization. Meme-trackers will tell you if your blog is being read by counting the number of times it’s referenced on other websites.
Community is created when you use all of the above to reach your customer base. It is fostered by the common interest and built by allowing and pursuing conversation.
Social media is revolutionizing marketing and leading to real systemic change. These tools build awareness and spread the word. They provide support, motivation and coordination for a unified approach to your customer. Social media changes the game by involving those affected by the problem in the solution. It gives your customer a platform for action. It also goes a long way to humanizing the situation by allowing your business as well your customer to express your feelings to one another.
You’re still selling furniture, just using different digital delivery channels and a fresh new language that sounds like, well… it sounds like people talking.
David Lively has over 20 year’s hands-on experience in the home furnishings industry. Twice named to Furniture Today’s “Beyond the Top 100” list of independent retailers and 1997 “Ohio Retailer of the Year,” David’s wisdom was won on the front lines and his battle scars have given him compassion for counseling today’s retail warrior. David is on the forefront of a new phenomenon that will soon rock the home furnishings industry: the transfer of authority, responsibility and wealth from one generation to the next. Four out of five family-owned furniture stores are still led by their founder, and 40 percent of them will change hands in the next five years. David has developed a proprietary and unparalleled system for helping identify goals, strengths and opportunities during this crucial time. You can reach David at (740) 415-3192 or visit www.thelivelymerchant.com.
