Reflection Three

Chapters 9 through 12 of Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff explain how we can embrace the groundswell and our customers, describe how connecting with the groundswell shapes our organizations, and emphasize the importance of remembering to tap the groundswell within our own organizations.  Some of the most interesting points to me from these chapters are the use of crowdsourcing to embrace customers, the importance of a strong Twitter presence, and the value in listening to the groundswell within our own organizations.


Throughout the first nine chapters of the book, we have learned strategies for listening to, talking with, and tapping into the groundswell, however, our engagement with the groundswell can't end there.  We must work to embrace our customers and incorporate their suggestions and feedback into innovation.  Not only does embracing the groundswell result in faster innovation, but it also proves that we are listening and are committed to providing a better product or service.  For example, Lay's is one brand that regularly crowdsources customer ideas through the "Do Us a Flavor Contest".

Do Us a Flavor Contest, 2017 Finalists

Lays launched the first Flavor Contest in July 2012 and since then has introduced more than a dozen of wild flavors including "Wavy Fried Green Tomato", "Crispy Taco", and "Southern Biscuits and Gravy".  Lay's produces the suggested flavors of each of the finalists they select and ask customers to try each flavor and vote for their favorite. Lay's incentivizes participation in this contest by offering a 1 million dollar grand prize and additional prizes to the runner-up finalists and semi-finalists.  Not only does Lay's benefit from the increased consumer buzz and sales from the Flavor Contest, but they also get the chance to try out new wacky flavors that they may never have considered themselves! In addition, their flavor innovation happens faster as a result of this contest because they recieve thousands of flavor suggestions to help inspire them.

Li and Bernoff highlight Twitter as one, almost essential way to tap into the groundswell.  According to Li and Bernoff, "10 percent of all the influence spread in social media comes from Twitter" (200).  One organization that I think excels at their use of Twitter is Moe's Southwest Grill.  Not only does Moe's use Twitter to listen to and talk with the groundswell through humorous tweets, but they also use it to energize their most loyal brand enthusiasts.

One of those brand enthusiasts is @hollytheninja, a close friend of mine.  Holly has tweeted at and about Moe's so much that they actually have followed her back and even regularly respond to her tweets.  For Holly, this reinforces her love of Moe's. Not only does she love their food, but she loves that they are a company that goofs around with their customers as if they were friends.  This type of relationship and intimacy between company and customer contributes to her sentiment that she would rather die than eat at their competitor, Chipotle.  For Moe's, positively interacting on Twitter energizes their most loyal customers who then spread the love of Moe's brand.  It is a low-cost and easy way to make a customer's day and energize the groundswell through Twitter.

Finally, Li and Bernoff explain the importance of remembering there is a mini-groundswell within our own organizations.  There are several advantages that we can gain from tapping into the mini-groundswell within our own organization including archiving knowledge and documents, improving communication, and increasing employee engagement.

As explained by Li and Bernoff, Best Buy is one company that successfully tapped into their internal groundswell through Blue Shirt Nation, an internal community site for Best Buy employees.  Although Blue Shirt Nation was a huge success in energizing Best Buy employees, the site was discontinued several years ago.  In its place, Best Buy established WaterCooler, a new online employee forum where employees have "free reign" to post almost anything they want.  According to Best Buy WaterCooler was an effective and low-cost substitution for Blue Shirt Nation and allowed increased communication between store employees and corporate employees.  Unfortunately, I was unable to find any more recent information on WaterCooler and so I can not confirm if it is still an effective tool in tapping the groundswell or if Best Buy allowed the community to fizzle out.

Do you think the companies described above have successfully used social media to interact with the groundswell? How could they continue to improve?

Reflection Two

In chapters 5 through 8 of Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, we learn the importance of talking with, listening to, and energizing the groundswell.  Li and Bernoff also provide us with helpful advice on how to successfully use a variety of tactics to tap into the groundswell to market our brands.  These chapters include a lot of very helpful advice, but I am going to focus on 3 main points from this chapter that I think are the most important in marketing our brands today.


First, we need to make an effort to listen to and energize the groundswell.  Li and Bernoff state that one way we can listen to the groundswell by setting up a private community.  As mentioned in my post last week,  Zox is one company which set up private communities for their customers.  Harley Davidson is a second brand that has created a community specifically for customers, the Harley Owners Group.  Membership is reserved for Harley owners and riders and includes many benefits including access to the members-only website, H.O.G. merchandise, and admittance to exclusive rallies and events, to name a few.  These private communities are a place for us to listen to our customers in a 'mini-groundswell' while connecting with and energizing our most loyal customers.

Second, Li and Bernoff explain the value in energizing the groundswell by encouraging our promoters to market our brand through word of mouth.  In the digital age, trust comes from the ground level, so word of mouth is very important in marketing our brands.  One way to build connections with our promoters is through ratings and reviews.  Including a ratings and reviews system has many benefits from increasing purchases to providing feedback to your company on their products and services.  According to Li and Bernoff, 96% of customers use online reviews to help make purchases (p. 138) while 62% of online North American consumers trust ratings and reviews (p. 132).

Amazon is one company which utilizes ratings and reviews for their products.  Not only can customers view the total star-rating for a product, but they can also view star-ratings by feature or ratings from certain customer groups.  For example, take a look at the rating breakdown for a JanSport Right Pack Laptop Backpack.

In addition to Amazon's rating feature, they have introduced the ability for customers to ask and answer questions regarding the product.  This feature takes the ratings and review feature one step further and allows customers to directly ask questions they have prior to purchasing the product in question.

Finally,  implementing support forums is one tactic to help the groundswell support itself.  According to Li and Bernoff, an average customer support call costs an organization 6 to 7 dollars while a technical support call costs between 10 to 20 dollars.  In addition, customer support lines can be incredibly frustrating for customers.  Community support forums are one option we can consider to reduce the volume of support calls while still ensuring customer's questions are answered.  PlayStation is one company that has implemented community support forums for their products. 

I personally use the support forums anytime I have a technical issue.  As a result, I personally have never had to pick up a phone and actually call for technical support.  The ability to ask questions on the community support forum saves PlayStation money on support calls and saves customers the frustration of having to deal with customer support lines.

Do you know of any other brands who have used one of these strategies? Were they successful? Share your thoughts below!

Zox Communities

If you were asked to identify the single most important aspect when trying to tap into the groundswell, what would you say?  Personally, I would argue relationships!  Relationships are a key component in energizing the groundswell about our products and services.  According to Li and Bernoff there are three techniques to build relationships and energize our customers using the groundswell:

1. Utilize ratings and reviews
2. Create a community
3. Energizing existing communities. 

The company we are going to look at today, Zox, created online communities related to their brand to energize their customers.

Zox is an accessory company started by the Kuipers brothers several years ago.  Zox makes limited-edition wristbands, clothing, and backpacks.  If there is anything the "bros" do better than producing one-of-a-kind accessories, it is marketing their brand on social media and creating communities to energize their customers.  Zox markets their products across a variety of platforms including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.  However, we know that simply posting to these platforms is not enough.  Brands must use these platforms to build relationships with their customers and engage the groundswell.

Brandon, Jason, and Jordan Kuipers- Creators of Zox

One strategy that Zox has used to energize their customers is by creating a community built around the love of the collectible straps.  This program is called Zox VIP.  Built into this program are rewards, a referral system, access to the Zox VIP community, and invitations to Zox meet-ups.  While each of these features has their own benefits, we are just going to focus on their use of communities to energize customers.

The Zox VIP community is a closed group on Facebook with over 7,300 members.  Zox VIP is a place where "Zoxers" can share their love of the products and connect with each other and the Kuipers.  Zox energizes the VIP customers by sharing information not yet available to non-VIP customers, hosting special giveaways and swaps, soliciting ideas for new products, and running a live stream where Zoxers can participate in a real-time Q+A and discussion. 

Energizing our customers has huge benefits for our brand.  For Zox, energizing their customers through the VIP community helps build relationships between themselves as owners and their customers, increases customer excitement and loyalty, creates brand enthusiasts who will market Zox through word-of-mouth, and increases their return on investment.  However, we also know that the benefits of building communities within the groundswell cannot come without some risk!  Once the groundswell begins to talk about your brand, what they say is out of your control.   On the VIP page, Zox has encountered some of the risks that come with building an online community, including a large number of complaints or negative posts regarding their brand and products.  In addition, there has been an overwhelming growth of the community, leaving the brothers struggling to keep up with the increased demands.

Cultivating our communities is the same as cultivating any other relationship, it requires time, patience, and constant adjustment to continue its good health and growth.  Zox is finding themselves in a place where their customer base has expanded and their online communities have followed close behind.  In turn, they must adjust their approach and consider expanding their marketing and brand monitoring.  To maintain a strong and positive online presence and community, we must always be adjusting our strategies, continuing to listen to the groundswell, and embracing our brand enthusiasts.

What do you think?  Has Zox used online communities effectively? How can they make adjustments to ensure their communities continue to grow in a positive way?