Open up your mind and say, ahh...

Part of an ongoing series dedicated to small businesses

As you read this, the business landscape is shifting right under your company’s foundation. How customers make decisions, how they discover, communicate, and share, how they influence and are influenced, is evolving considerably. In fact, customer behavior is not only changing, it’s fragmenting and opening the door to new touch points. Your business will now have to compete for the customers you know and additionally, a new breed of customers that you need to know. And, to earn their attention and ultimately their loyalty, you will need to better understand the top technology trends and how they’re impacting customer behavior.

At the heart of this customer divide is technology. But this isn’t about the technology we once knew, such as PCs, laptops, iPods, ebook readers, DVRs, etc. This change in consumerism is the inevitable result of disruptive technology and how it has affected behavior and reshaped expectations. Smart phones, social networks, apps, gamified everything, Google Glasses, self-driving cars, smart appliances, the list goes on, are placing consumers at the center of their own universe connected to one another through shared experiences. This plugged-in and always-on customers are learning to see the world differently. They’re empowered and they’re entitled. As a result, disruptive technology is grooming customers to expect information and opportunities to find them.

Everything starts with surveying the landscape for how you reach customers today and how their behavior and expectations are shifting. But this is also about the people you don’t reach now. This research will help understand how to appeal to a new type of customer as well.

If you thought that having a social media strategy and presences in the most popular social networks was enough, think again. What of adding social buttons to your website or in your email blasts? Still not enough? How about developing apps for iPhone and Android platforms? Nope. That’s not the right approach.

It takes research to truly understand how customer segmentation is materializing and how new technologies introduce opportunities to engage effectively with each group. More importantly, it takes interpretation, strategy, and a culture of innovation to recognize and prioritize these new opportunities and execute against them while windows for engagement are open.

Just like customer service, sales, and marketing, technology and your ability to translate trends into opportunities, are now part of your everyday business strategy. To what extent disruptive technology impacts your customer landscape, differs from industry to industry and it is your research that reveals where to concentrate and balance your focus and investments. To help, I’ve assembled a list of 10 current trends to evaluate . But, this is just the beginning. Use this list to build a regiment of research and innovation within your business now and over time.

10 movements to review for opportunities…

1. Social Networks from Facebook to Twitter to Google+ and how they’re connecting to influencers and businesses (note: pay attention to nicheworks as well such as Path and Instagram.)

2. Geolocation check-in services such as Foursquare and Facebook location updates to share locations and earn rewards or opportunities for discounts

3. Crowdsourced discounts and deals including Groupon and LivingSocial and what’s valued and why

4. Social commerce services like Shopkick and Armadealo and how they create personalized experiences that are worth sharing

5. Referral based solutions like Yelp, Service Magic (now HomeAdvisor), and Angie’s List to make informed decisions and how shared experiences can improve your business, products, and services

6. Gamification platforms such as Badgeville and Fangager, and why rewarding engagement improves commerce and loyalty

7. How your consumers using mobile devices today and what apps they’re installing. Also, how they’re comparing options, reviewing experiences and making decisions while mobile?

8. The online presence your business produces across a variety of platforms such as tablets, smartphones, laptops and desktops. You must realize how consumers are experiencing the online presences you create and whether or not they deliver a holistic and optimized experience for each platform.

9. The consumer clickpath based on the platform consumers are using. Are you steering experiences based on the expectations of your customers? And are you taking into consideration the device or network where the clickpath begins and ends? Are you integrating Facebook F-commerce and m-commerce into the journey?

10. The expectations of connected consumers, what they value in each channel and platform, where they engage and how your business can improve experiences and make them worthy of sharing.

What would you add?

No company is too big to fail or too small to succeed. Simply knowing your customer is one thing. The connected customers does not replace your traditional customer, they simply introduce new opportunities to grow your business. How you’re marketing, selling, and servicing customers today are in many ways missing these important customers and thus limiting your ability for engagement and growth.

Understanding how connected customers make decisions informs more meaning strategies and ultimately effective and engaging programs, products, and services. Now more than ever, the future of business isn’t created, it’s co-created.

Originally published at AT&T’s Networking Exchange Blog

Chart: Shutterstock

Service matters. We know this in our guts, and yet, most companies make service an after-thought, and a cost center. They say, “We value our customers,” quite often on their pre-recorded 6-8 minute long hold message tape. Service has always mattered, but it’s coming to be a vital competitive edge. With that in mind, I wanted to offer you 9 starting points for improving your service craftsmanship.

Cure Your Amnesia

If someone buys from your organization and then later communicates with you about some matter, it would be good to know that they are a customer. Though we’re not really supposed to treat people differently, you would be foolish not to treat your best customers with the utmost of care. Remember that “most money paid” isn’t always the criteria for best. You’ll know the difference. To cure this, simply be sure that every system that requires one to know a name also gives that file some kind of nod to the fact that the customer is a repeat patron of your organization. Want to go a step further? Remember what I did last time and ask me if I want more of the same.

Consider The Extra Touches

In almost any business transaction, there’s an opportunity to add an extra nice touch. Quite often, this makes a powerful impact on your customer. What can you do? It can be simple, inexpensive, or even free, if it’s timely and shows a level of connectedness with your customer. Christopher Lynn from the famous Hotel Colonnade in Boston knew that Jacq and I were out at a Black Keys concert. He ran over to the mall across from his hotel, picked up a copy of the latest CD, and had it on our pillow when we came back. It was a perfect little touch that cost about $15 and 20 minutes of his time, but that strengthens my commitment to staying at the Colonnade any time I’m in Boston. What extra touch can you give? Can you draw smiley faces on my sales slips? Even that’s nice.

Communicate Simply, Clearly, and Almost Often

Airlines seem to have mastered the art of vagary, especially lately. As I experience more and more delays on flights, I’m getting answers like, “we’re just waiting on some paperwork.” First, it’s 2012. Do we really use a lot of paper? Evidently so. Second, why are you holding up my flight 10-15 minutes for a piece of paper? Answer: that’s not really why they’re delayed.

People want to feel informed. This improves outcome, even if the response from a company is a bit negative. It’s better to know that you’re not going to get your package today than it is to say, “Well, we’re tracking it and there haven’t been any updates to the status.” Be simple, be clear, and communicate fairly regularly (but not too much- if you over-communicate, it’s showing fear).

Reduce Friction Everywhere

Most processes come about from past experiences, and rarely from current circumstances. They almost never come from “what’s best for the customer.” If you have a process that makes it harder for people to do business, why would it shock you that people won’t do business with you? Policies are meant to facilitate business, not hamper it. Revisit every policy frequently to determine whether it’s giving you or your customers/clients a problem. It’s amazing what you’ll turn up. Sometimes, fixing this kind of friction costs money, but often, it’s as simple as crumpling up a piece of paper and starting with a new perspective. The rewards are magical.

Say Thank You

Companies have a strange history with saying thank you. Sometimes, they get the words out, but follow them up with, “And I’d love you to buy THIS item, too!” Other times, they say thank you only when they’re ready to hit you up in the sales process again, or when they need something. Get in the habit of thanking your clients and customers. It’s a magic secret to creating good service.

Service Craftsmanship

Service Craftsmanship is part of the Human Business Way, a set of guiding principles and practices we’ve assembled for professionals in companies of any size – solo to mega corporation – so we can help you build a sustainable, relationship-minded business. If you want to learn more about the Human Business Way, I’d recommend checking out my weekly newsletter (it’s FREE).

I had an interesting comment from someone at an event recently. We were picking apart my Twitter stream and I was explaining my philosophy around it. He raised his hand and said, “Well, to be really honest, I wouldn’t be all that interested in seeing your pictures of bacon.” In this case, he meant quite literally the picture above, but in the larger sense, he was saying, “I want a business-focused person to follow.”

My response was that it was perfectly fair to feel that way, but that it also meant that he wasn’t likely my buyer. In my very specific case, I tend to work with companies that value personality as well as professional ability. It’s every bit as important to me that my kind of customer have an interesting personality, a quirkiness, and a tolerance for the atypical. That’s a choice, though, and it’s something I encourage you to consider.

We Choose Our Customers

Look, when we’re hungry for business, we just want to see the cash register ring. I’ve been there, and I’ll be there again. But when we do have the opportunity to consider our ideal client, it’s important to take a moment and work through that, to really determine what it is that will help you qualify who works with you or not.

In the case of media making and your online presence, what you put out there for the world to see on your social channels and your blog is what people are going to weigh into other equations when determining whether to buy from you. At the moment I’m writing this blog post, my last 20 tweets say nothing about what kind of business I’m in. My Facebook account is completely personal and not for business. My last few posts on Google+ are actually more business-focused, but that’s just happenstance. Why? Because I use social networks as a kind of liner notes for the personality behind the business.

Why Choose Your Customers?

Hold on there, Brogan. It’s a barely recovering economy and my kids have to eat. Why should I choose who my customers are? Why should I go out of my way to disqualify potential buyers?

Because customers that aren’t a fit create friction.

Simple. The deal you make when you take on a customer that doesn’t fit your personality or work style is that you’re asking for their money and signing up for however you will clash with them. This, in turn, may (will!) cause procrastination, may (will!) cause a less-than-stellar effort on your part, and will detract from the kinds of customers and clients you have more in common with. Those, by the way, are the people who will spend more with you over the long term, and who will form the core of your business relationships, not these folks you accept because you “need the money.”

Is This Crazy Talk?

I’ll let you tell me. Jump into the comments. Tell me about the times you’ve taken that customer who wasn’t really down with your particular kind of crazy. Hey, if you’ve had the opposite experience, that’s cool, too. I know someone out there wants to share some Kumbaya story about how working through one’s differences is a rewarding experience. My take? Life’s too short.

There’s a marketing principle called “the paradox of choice.” Essentially, more than 2 choices means people will be more inclined to do nothing. We do great with “this or that,” but not great with “here are five options.” Sure, we can do it, but it’s not a native mental process.

Your email signature, more often than not, has grown. It looks like this:

Jennifer McSomebodyImportant
Director, Really Important Projects With Names That Don’t Make Sense
51 Brilliant Drive #808
GorgeousCity, XX 93100
Office: 814.555.0181
Cell: 814.222.1148
Phone Near the Bathroom: 814.202.2222
jennifer.mcsomebodyimportant@us-bigcompany.com

http://bigcompany.com

Check out our blog! http://bigcompany.com/blog

And then the social links:

Okay, Now What?

You did it because you wanted to show that you were very accessible. What you’ve told your receiver, however, doesn’t translate well. It most definitely doesn’t tell them how you prefer to be reached. It also is a lot to absorb, and so people tend to discard what they can’t absorb.

So, maybe pick 2, 3 at the most:

Physical address, if that matters.
Phone or email.
One social network.

And that’s about it.

Why? Again, we’re looking to eliminate a choice problem. Make it super streamlined.

Try it. You’ll appreciate the difference. More importantly, your customers will.

In his great keynote speech at IMS 2012 in San Francisco, Rick Bakas said, “We have to think mobile first, desktop second.” (I admit that I heard absolutely zero percent of the rest of the speech, because that little seed was enough to plant a forest in my head.) But in case that wasn’t enough, I had an experience a few hours later that fertilized the point and forced the issue.

It turns out that in San Francisco, getting a taxi to actually stop and pick you up is a bit of a chore. I met one cab driver who told me that he’d met several mayors and heads of government, simply because he’s a role model because he picks up more passengers than most drivers. (Now, before some union or other association wants to complain that I’m misrepresenting drivers in SF, I have no idea of the details. This is my experience + what I was told.)

Thank goodness another cab driver told me about Cabulous, this mobile app that lets you notify a driver that you need a pick-up without having to call the dispatcher at all. This saved Jacq and me a bunch of time, and just generally made travel work better for us in SF. Plus, it gave the driver more fares without having to wait for his dispatcher or guess where people were waiting. It worked well (in San Francisco, mind you- a very high tech area).

But this is just the story that leads me to the conversation.

A Mobile First World

I’m planning a new event that takes an even bigger, more innovative swing at how mid-sized to larger businesses will function around this digital channel. In putting it all together, I’m paying more attention to how businesses of all sizes utilize the various tools at their disposal to conduct business. For instance, I’ve been paying a lot more attention to how mobile changes the game.

For instance, this cab driver doesn’t need to have a blog. He doesn’t need a board on Pinterest. Cabulous is a mobile-first solution that gives him more buyers. Because his business is built on a simple transaction, why should he bother with all the frills? He shouldn’t.

But what about you? Are your business interactions as simple? And are you built around a mobile-first mindset? I’m guessing you’re not. I know that I’m not. My sites are all mobile-ready and mobile-enhanced, partly because I use a mobile-friendly theme from Studiopress (affiliate link), and also because I use a mobile-formatting plugin for chrisbrogan.com (called wptouch). We need to think even more about this.

The Mobile-First World and You

Look from your side of the equation first: you sleep with your smartphone right beside the bed, don’t you? You reach for it first thing in the morning. You never leave the house without it. You put it on the table at breakfast like a gunslinger. You’re even starting to do some business functions via your mobile devices.

So, that’s you as the user. What about you as the business owner, as the collaborator, as the face of interactions between others and your company? What do you have to do to prepare? What steps will you take?

Join a Free Webinar to Learn More

My business partners at Citrix Online (makers of GoToMeeting, GoToWebinar, GoToSleep, and similar) have sponsored a conversation between myself and Chuck Martin, CEO of the Mobile Future Institute and author of the bestseller, The Third Screen: Marketing to Your Customers in a World Gone Mobile (amazon affiliate link).

We’ll talk about marketing, but also about collaboration, internal business functions, and whatever else I can wring out of Chuck’s brilliant mind. This conversation isn’t one to miss, as I have a lot to ask him, after hearing from Rick Bakas and observing Cabulous in action.

We chat with Chet Kanojia of Aereo, the new TV-where-and-when-you-want-it service that has a few legal troubles. Could Aereo finally disrupt the loathed cable bundle–and TV altogether?

Chet Kanojia is the CEO of Aereo, a Barry Diller-backed, TV-in-your-browser platform that launched in mid-March in a limited New York City release. For $12 a month, Aereo allows its users to watch live broadcast TV on any Apple device of their choosing (plus Roku), in high-definition. Users can also make DVR recordings that are stored in the cloud. I’ve sampled the beautifully-designed service, whose user interface offers just about the cleanest online TV experience imaginable. For now, Aereo is limited to basic over-the-air TV: no cable options yet.

At launch, Aereo was immediately beset by legal challenges from the New York media companies whose content Aereo redistributes. (How exactly Aereo does so is fascinating, and involves lots of dime-sized antennae stored somewhere in Brooklyn.) Earlier this week, a judge dismissed one of the claims of the lawsuit, but two claims of copyright infringement remain. On Wednesday, Public Knowledge and the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed friend-of-the-court briefs arguing in Aereo’s favor. We caught up with Kanojia to talk about his disruptive technology.

FAST COMPANY: In the age of Netflix and Hulu Plus, consumers seem to expect about a $9-a-month price point for online TV. Why should they pay you $12 a month for content they could potentially get for free?

CHET KANOJIA: Simplicity and convenience. When you get it free and over the air, you don’t get DVR, and you don’t get the ability to place-shift. You’d have to get a device like Tivo, plus a Slingbox, and it’s cumbersome and complicated. But I’d love people to do that more and more. The more people that understand that this highly compelling content is right there for free, the better it is for us. You’ve been trained by the cable companies to buy the whole thing at once, whether you watch it or not. Now it’s time to start trying to take a stand.

How did you choose the $12 price point?

Um, we made it up… That’s a half-true answer. These are early days, and we just put something out there that we would like to get some reactions to. From a value perspective, if you called a cable company today and said, “I just want over-the-air channels in HD and the ability to place-shift,” it’d be $75 or more per month. Just a DVR box is $18 a month with tax. My belief on this whole thing, and it’s a subtle but important point, is that what we are doing is the dislocation of the packaging of technology with content. We’re purely technology; we’re not making you buy a package. That dislocation has a really interesting side effect, because the cost curves of technology only come down. As we drive the cost curves down, you may see us do things that are very innovative in terms of pricing.

For example?

Instead of a monthly basis, it could be based on usage. Twelve-bucks-a-month is a starting point, while we understand what utilization patterns look like. We want to make sure people get what they pay for, rather than just some random-ass number that people make up.

You’ve been live about two months. Care to share user numbers?

We don’t release numbers, but we have a subscriber base that’s several thousand deep. And we haven’t even enabled all platforms yet. We want to come to Androids and PCs.

And geographically? Any plans to move beyond New York?

Expansion plans are a bit of a state secret around here. Mainly because they don’t really exist. Having said that, our technology is designed to be highly modular, and we could be in 50 markets if we chose to do that. But we have a diligent team, and our goal is to minimize foolishness. A lot of companies go hog wild with expansion, and they don’t understand who their customers are.

Let’s talk a bit about your legal troubles.

All I would probably say is this: Our technology is built with three fundamental principles in mind. First, there was a requirement that the broadcast license was granted in the consumers’ interest. Second, it’s established in the law that the consumer is allowed to create recordings for themselves. Third, the consumer is allowed to rent equipment for the purposes of creating these recordings. Those are the three principles that bind Aereo.

What’s a potential vision of the future for Aereo?

“A lot of companies go hog wild with expansion, and they don’t understand who their customers are.”

The dream-come-true would be to really create a parallel ecosystem in which buyers and sellers of content come together in a way that makes sense. If you get a sufficient mass of consumers on the platform, new content will emerge, programmed for them. Say I’m a new internet-based news channel: I might price my news channel at $1.99, and users wouldn’t have to take 55 other channels to get value out of mine. Even the CEO of Time Warner Cable yesterday went on the record saying that there are too many networks, and nobody watches them all.

I think if you got HBO GO on board with Aereo as it is now, that’s all I’d need.

You’re not unique in that. The purpose of Aereo is to create a platform, that once you get to a certain size, content owners can’t ignore it, and they’re forced to come and sell to you.

Would you ever want to finance new content yourself, like Netflix?

I want to be clear in this: the goal is to create just a technology platform. We’re not a content company. That’s somebody else’s business. We are trying to decouple technology and content.

Is the goal to go as a la carte as possible? So I could just subscribe to and pay for certain shows, even within certain channels?

I can’t say what the future’s gonna be like. The baby step is to enable a la carte channel access. The goal is to break towards enough granularity that you have sufficient value in it.

If Aereo’s only legacy was to light a fire under companies that should have already been providing services like Aereo, would you be happy?

The reason for me to start Aereo was a strong personal passion for creating an alternative to the options out there today. To the extent that that happened, Aereo would be a massive success. I would contend we’ve already started the debate in a meaningful way.

This interview has been condensed and edited.

The people have spoken, and they’re not interested in an electric Rolls-Royce.

Since its debut at the 2011 Geneva Motor Show, Rolls-Royce has been traveling the world with its sole Rolls-Royce 102EX Phantom Experimental Electric, gauging how likely current Rolls-Royce owners would be to open their Burberry wallets for an EV adorned with the Spirit of Ecstasy.

Apparently, those folks told Rolls where they could plug it, as Motor Trend reported yesterday that the project has been cancelled. And so, the sole Rolls-Royce EV will forever wear the red badge that marks it as a prototype. Company officials always said that they’d build the 102EX only as long as their customers demanded it, and not a single one did.

Their opinions were quite different than ours. We got the chance to drive the 102 EX shortly after its debut and immediately fell in love. The electric drivetrain’s seamless, silent acceleration and massive amounts of torque seemed perfectly suited for the Phantom, as did the ability to hide the high cost of batteries in the car’s already exorbitant purchase price. We couldn’t imagine range anxiety being a problem for the kind of people who own multiple cars, take private jets for long trips and have a household staff to keep the batteries charged.

Our take was shared by nearly everyone else who drove it and later wrote about it. Of course, Rolls-Royce doesn’t listen to automotive writers. They listen to their customers, 500 of whom said they’d prefer a V12 to 96 lithium nickel cobalt manganese oxide pouch cells, and weren’t at all impressed with the car’s claimed range of 120 miles or eight hour recharge time. As early as last June, customer feedback was decidedly lukewarm.

That’s one of the benefits of running such an exclusive car maker — instant access to the wants, needs and whims of your entire target audience. We’d be willing to bet that Ford, GM and Toyota have each conducted focus groups with far more participants.

Just because the 102EX is dead doesn’t mean we’ll never see a plug-in Rolls, however. Just as company officials learned that their customers didn’t want an EV, they undoubtedly found out just what would interest potential buyers — whether it’s the promise of a future hybrid, range-extended EV, or another car with a V12.

Photos: Rolls-Royce Motor Cars

Reading this, you may have just clicked away from Yammer, NationalField, or another enterprise social network. All those status updates are creating major shifts in the way we work, say Dion Hinchcliffe and Peter Kim in Social Business by Design, available now from Jossey-Bass. Fast Company talked with Hinchcliffe about how social media is blurring the line between company and customer, killing off status reports, and making the activity steam the new center of work–and why that’s a good thing.

FAST COMPANY: Why do businesses need to become social businesses?

DION HINCHCLIFFE: Because their customers have moved: Where they used to be visiting their website, watching TV, or reading the newspaper, they don’t do those things so much anymore. The developed world primarily uses social media, and it’s been that way since 2009. A billion and a half people, and they use it more intensely than anything else that they do.

What does a highly functional social workplace look like?

One in which people narrate their work. The organization finally has visibility into what people are really working on, and it also enables the process to be open and participative. We’re talking about a natural and open process of collaborating that looks just like a Facebook feed: You see what’s going on in your company, in your department, or with your team all the time. You gather information that you need and you share the information that others need.

What are the other elements of the enterprise social ecosystem?

A fully social ecosystem has the marketplace, everyone out there that you potentially want to connect with, the customers that you already have and need to support, or want to sell to, or need to communicate with;  your business suppliers in your entire supply chain; the whole B2B story around social; and it’s of course your workers themselves. The ecosystem consists of all the connections and all the conversations happening between all those constituent pieces.

I imagine that this creates a ton of data.

This is the famous thing that Clay Shirky said, “Information overload is not the problem; you want all the information. It’s filter failure.” You can’t listen to everything that’s going on in your company all the time. You want to filter it down to what matters to you at the moment and help you get your job done. You want to be able to find it all when it does matter. Later on, you say “I know they were working on this last week and I just realized I need to know what they were doing because it affects my work.” You can go find that. You can go find that conversation, that collaborative scenario, catch up on how its going, and maybe even join in on it, or start it back up if it’s not going.

If I’m a manager of company that’s not the most technologically nimble, what should I do to move toward becoming a social business?

The farther you are away from the technology industry, the less likely you’ll find social networking to be a natural thing for you to do. There’s more work you have to do.

You can try and find out what others in the organization are doing, because I guarantee you, if you’re a medium-sized business, or a large business, your organization is already doing social in some way. Don’t duplicate it, go and find out what’s going on, and see if you can join in and adapt your part of the organization.

Other than that, you can start looking at doing something locally. We know there’s really good tools for social CRM–customer support and care. It’s a really good scenario: high value, easy to do, and it’s something you can pilot without involving the whole organization.

Involved in this is a dissolving of the barrier between business and customer, is that right?

The customer wants more control. I think companies are uncomfortable with that, but if the customers really like something, they want to tell you how to improve it and change it.

For customer care, we find a bunch of examples in the book of companies that allow customers to talk to each other, the customer ends up being the best support people. They usually know more about the product collectively than the company does.

We see a blurring of when does the company end and when does it start, because customers are actually providing many of the most valuable functions, not the company itself, in this new model.

What’s the next trend?

We’re really seeing social moving to the center of work–right now it hangs around the edges, it forms the narrative fabric of what we do, but more and more we see evidence that over the next five years, with more companies, it will be the center of work.

You can wire in all the systems you use and have one activity stream, where all your collaborations are happening, all your records that you’re working on are right there, and they’re kept in the right place. You have this place that you’re working in that also involves everyone that you need to work with, wherever they are in the world, inside or outside the company. That seems to be the grand unified vision.

Why’s that such a good thing for managers?

They could keep track of what’s going on better than they ever could before. Often managers have to ask for status reports–can you imagine status reports going away? A lot of the traditional processes we have are highly duplicative: You do the work, and then you’ve got to describe it again in a status report, and then your manager has to look at it again–all that process goes away, you eliminate that duplication. You just acknowledge the work and the conversation. You don’t need those extra pieces. It will simplify what we do and improve the cycle times.

If I’m an entrepreneur, what’s the most important thing for me to keep in mind regarding social business?

We open the book with forward from Jeff Dachis, “everything that can be social will be,” and we also say that “everything that can be mobile will be, too.” I would really look at the hot areas as those that enable that vision, and we have a long way to go of making it simple, easy, and delivered the right way in terms of user experience on the right devices. There’s a lot of work left to be done.

The hottest area right now is social analytics. The data explosion has happened. We have the collective intelligence of the company out on display–now we have to do something with it, so there’s literally hundreds of startups focusing on mining that so we can get better decisions made faster than the competition.

And avoid that filter failure.

Yes, exactly.

To get a bigger glimpse of social-to-come, read our excerpt from Social Business by Design.

Image: Flickr user Andreas Levers

The digital landscape continues to undergo a significant shift that will have profound effects on business this year. The challenge is that hardly any business leaders noticed. That’s not their fault however. Even through the impact of technology on business and consumer behavior was widely reported, in depth reports on what to do next or how this will affect their business specifically were scant at best.

I’m sure you heard it from “experts” everywhere, “You need a Facebook brand page! Why are you not on Twitter yet? Have you checked-in on Foursquare? Hurry up and get set up on Google+. If you don’t get on social media, you’re going to go out of business!”

And, here you are…still in business I presume. But like any keen business leader, you’re avidly thinking about your next move. You already know that running the show in a mode of “business as usual” is not only limiting, it’s terribly complacent. But if you are to change, you need to better understand exactly how technology is influencing the behavior of your customers and why.

The truth is that you can create brand pages on every social network you can imagine and you won’t succeed unless you know whom you’re trying to reach and where, what it is they expect and value, and how these channels represent a meaningful opportunity for you and your consumers to connect. You first must answer what’s in it for them and what’s in it for you.

What the social media gurus aren’t telling you is that the landscape for business isn’t changing because of social media, it’s changing because consumer expectations are evolving. Your customers are empowered through technology where social media becomes only part of the disruption. Social networks, smartphones, tablets, review sites, gamification, geo-location, et al. are producing a new breed of consumer and businesses are largely missing them altogether. In fact, the emergence of this more “connected consumer” is forcing the end of business as usual. And at the same time, the pattern of decisions these connected consumers make usher in an era of risk where any business, large and small is vulnerable to digital Darwinism – the evolution of consumer behavior when society and technology evolve faster than the ability to adapt.

Your job is to not embrace new technology with arms wide open, but instead understand it and learn which disruptive technologies separate you from existing and potential customers. What’s unique about connected consumers is that they find and share information differently than their more traditional counterparts. They make decisions differently than the everyday consumers you’re used to engaging as well. But this part is the key, the connected do not displace your traditional customer, they simply expand your opportunity to grow your business. How you’re marketing, selling, and servicing customers today are largely missing this new breed of consumer and thus limiting your overall opportunity for growth.

To reach the connected consumer, you must first walk in their footsteps. It takes research not guesswork. It takes understanding not skepticism. And it takes a dedicated not generic or approximated approach. Why? Because while your traditional consumer relies on tangible media such as TV, radio, newspapers, direct mail, email, Google search or static websites, the connected consumer is not blindly seeking information, they are reliant on the right information finding them in the right places.

For example, your new prospective customer lives on their smartphones and tablets. They network with friends, family and the businesses they support in mobile and social networks. They check in to locations to signal to people nearby that they’re in the neighborhood and to alert businesses that they’re ready to interact live. Consumers install apps to better make decisions and to broadcast those decisions to their social networks. What’s more, they research products and services based on the experiences of their peers in real-time and in turn share their experiences with everyone else to shape and steer the experiences of others. In doing so they expand the idea of audiences to something far more efficient and expansive, an audience with an audience of audiences.

While it seems foreign or dismissible to those who are not actively embracing or even dependent on disruptive technology, connected consumers are only growing in size, magnitude and influence. Ignoring them is a step toward digital Darwinism. Understanding them and their behavior is a step toward relevance. In 2012, consider yourself a digital anthropologist or sociologist as you immerse in a day in the life of your connected consumer and seek to close the chasm between you and them. There are many professional analysts, researchers and strategists who can help you find the answers you seek.

Starting now and lasting well, forever, technology and empathy are now part of your business strategy. To what extent disruptive technology impacts your markets, will depend on your industry and the rate of adoption within it.

Your priority areas include understanding…

1. Social Networks from Facebook to Twitter to Google+ and how they’re connecting to influencers and businesses

2. Geolocation check-in services such as Foursquare and Facebook location updates to share locations and earn rewards or opportunities for discounts

3. Crowdsourced discounts and deals including Groupon and LivingSocial and what’s valued and why

4. Social commerce services like Shopkick and Armadealo and how they create personalized experiences that are worth sharing

5. Referral based solutions like Yelp, Service Magic, and Angie’s List to make informed decisions and how shared experiences can improve your business, products, and services

6. Gamification platforms such as Badgeville and Fangager, and why rewarding engagement improves commerce and loyalty

7. How your consumers using mobile devices today and what apps they’re installing. Also, how they’re comparing options, reviewing experiences and making decisions while mobile?

8. The online presence your business produces across a variety of platforms such as tablets, smartphones, laptops and desktops. You must realize how consumers are experiencing the online presences you create and whether or not they deliver a holistic and optimized experience for each platform.

9. The consumer clickpath based on the platform consumers are using. Are you steering experiences based on the expectations of your customers? And are you taking into consideration the device or network where the clickpath begins and ends? Are you integrating Facebook F-commerce and m-commerce into the journey?

10. The expectations of connected consumers, what they value in each channel and platform, where they engage and how your business can improve experiences and make them worthy of sharing.

This year and next are formidable years to solidify your position in how you compete for the future. Nowadays, no company is too big to fail or too small to succeed. Simply knowing your customer is one thing. But, understanding how they make decisions and participating in that process influences behavior while building meaningful relationships. Regardless of technology, the future of business isn’t created, it’s co-created. To succeed, it takes a culture of customer-centricity and the ability to recognize new opportunities and adapt based on what they present.

As Leon C. Megginson once said in paraphrasing Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.”

#AdaptorDie

Image credit: Shutterstock

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Suzanne LaBarre

Suzanne is a senior editor at Co.Design. You may email her at suzannelabarre@gmail.com Continued