Customer Experience

One of the central components making social media successful is its ability to share any content with one person or many. The propensity to share is overwhelming with an urgency that isn’t seen in any other kind of social interaction.

What is happening today is the ability to share across social media networks is rapidly evolving a new kind of commerce. Peer-to-peer and collaboration are redefining the business/customer relationship.

Jeremiah Owyang, Founder, Crowd Companies Council explains: “Ten years ago, we forecasted that social media would be disruptive to corporations. It was, but mainly to marketing functions, customer care, and corporate communications functions.

“Fast forward to today, using these technologies and mobile apps, we’re seeing the rise of people getting what they need from each other: They’re sharing homes, cars, rides, money, goods, and their time.

This Collaborative Economy is forcing companies to rethink the relationship they have with their customers as the crowd is starting to become a competitor. In the embedded slideshare, I’m collecting stats of disruption and will update it over time as the market continues to develop.”

For corporations that need to protect and develop their brands, an appreciation of how collaboration is changing the business landscape is vital. Marketers then need to move past the traditional sales funnel and their place within it to deliver the brand values and mechanics that consumers now demand.

Crowd companies are in their infancy at the moment, and corporations are in the early days of understanding the rules of engagement across this new landscape. What is certain however is that the crowd as a force within the social businesses can’t be ignored.

[Image Source: Freedigitalphotos.net]