Regular visitors of this blog probably remember that a few weeks ago we organized a social marketing meetup. One of the people, willing to help out and introduced to me by young Thomas Van Orshaegen, was Alain Indria, owner of a “natural food” shop, Lombardia, in Antwerp that got international headlines when one day a journalist from the Wall Street Journal put his restaurant on the top five places to visit in Antwerp, Belgium. Alain was at that time at the Shanghai World Expo, passionately demonstrating his new creation, the GingerLove tea. Among his customers, Alain has a lot of famous people and he took care of the catering when stars such as Moby and others came to Belgium. His passion and enthusiasm struck me. But so did the way he used social media. Strategy? No, sir. Alain’s social media approach and his whole businesses thrive on three things: passion, an incredible sales drive and an excellent interaction with his community. But that’s not all. The amazing stuff still has to come!
community
Communication and marketing relationships: the power and danger of words and marketing speak
Using marketing terms to describe people, their needs and the way they communicate, makes us, marketers, reduce the reality of communication into a linguistical cloud that troubles our views on people and the way they connect.
Marketers are not the only ones using their own dictionary to capture reality in a very specific speak, of course.
MDs have patients or clients, governments have citizens, marketers have target groups, recipients, fans, prospects, leads, consumers etc.
Language is powerful but it can also be destructive and reduce complex realities to simple words that enable us to see clear in the chaos but at the same time make us blind to the reality.
Why don't we just talk about people and dialogues instead of customers, prospects, leads and media?