Is it What You Know or Who You Know?

Posted on 26 December 2010 | by Christina Quist

Building a community can help build your business. I mean, if you believe Steve Jobs or something.

I use a Mac and I’m pretty much a snob about it. If I believe Steve Jobs, it’s not about the product as much as it is about the other people who use the product. According to Apple’s advertising, they are cool. Therefore by association, that makes me cool.

The same thought process can be said for other products. I saw a bumper sticker the other day that said, “It’s a Jeep thing. You wouldn’t understand.” Quite right I wouldn’t understand. I don’t drive a Jeep or any vehicle that’s purposely missing doors. Those spaces were meant to be filled with titanium steel, not open air. I’m even nervous for the UPS guy.

My point is, sometimes it’s not about the product, but the people who use the product. We’ve seen the, “I’m a Mac (cool guy) and I’m a PC” (dork) commercials. The survival of the fittest is played out in a 45 second TV spot, even though I can’t remember much about the products mentioned.

According to Roger Dooley, on his Neuromarketing blog, he explains the basic premise behind this behavior: “In neuromarketing terms, our brains are hardwired to WANT to be in one or more groups. Brands that can be positioned to put their customers into a group will find that their efforts will be enhanced by their customers’ own need to belong. In addition, they will likely cultivate a dislike for other brand groups.” [From Roger’s blog-Revealed...]

Wow, not only do customers want to belong to a certain group, but we can also be tend to dislike the others. Look at Facebook and Twitter. Perhaps millions of us aren’t so enthralled with the products of social media as we are belonging to a group that connects us to each other. There’s also some preferential treatment involved with the user-ship.

Author and marketing expert Seth Godin says, “ What people really want is the ability to connect to each other, not to companies. So the permission is used to build a tribe, to build people who want to hear from the company because it helps them connect, it helps them find each other, it gives them a story to tell and something to talk about.” [From Seth's Blog - Tribe Management.]

How interesting would your business get if you focused more on who rather than what?

Tags: emarketing, apple, social media, twitter

Comments (2)

Ryan Battles Dec. 26, 2010		I totally agree. I just ran into this when I was trying to convince my wife that we needed the more expensive iPhone and not a cheaper Android phone (with a cheaper plan). While we could do a comparison chart on all of the features, in the end it just comes down to the fact that I like Apple products, and I just want to remain devoted to that platform. The software that I use on the Mac often has an iOS counterpart, and the articles that I read about one Apple product tend to also cover other Apple products. I'm immersed into the community at this point, and it truly does affect my purchasing decisions more than price alone.
christina Dec. 27, 2010		I can relate. At this point, I'm not sure I even do objective comparison shopping. When I was watching Apple commercials on youtube (strictly for research) the comments are indicative of this tribal mindset.