Don’t get me wrong – I love this new futon I just bought from a buddy of mine. Unfortunately, it took me over a week to put together. My friend decided that the instruction manual wasn’t important enough to keep around. So it was just me, this dismembered futon, and the internet.
My first instinct was to look online to see if the company posted any online material on how to assemble their futon. To my dismay, all I found was a catalog of the rest of their merchandise from their rather uninteresting Facebook page. After a bit more web-hunting, I came across a unique blog. And BOOM! Lo and behold, it was a rather humorous blog on how he had the same issue and decided to post something on how to put the futon together. He figured it could help somebody out. Turns out that somebody was me and a few other guys.
This guy knew what he was doing. He had his own little community going on. He was actually interacting with people. People liked this guy, and he didn’t even have to appeal to a huge audience. He knew something this futon business didn’t: social media.
Social media is imperative to any given business. They are the extension of their product and service. They give off the essence of their brand. All this futon company wanted from me was to buy their stuff. They got that…and then they stopped there.
That’s not what I want. When I buy into a company, I want to see some material that says I should come again. I want an experience. I want something like, “Hey, that was fun.” Instead, they gave me, “Thanks bro, good luck.”
Businesses should learn to appeal to their customers’ needs beyond the initial purchase (The Millennial CEO 2013). Certain businesses can learn from the futon-blogging-man I found on Google. Just because of his helpful little blog, I’m almost tempted to buy from the actual company again.
Check out this nifty little article from The Huffington Post on how businesses should utilize blogging!
Christian Herrera 