Social Media & Digital Marketing in Singapore

Book Review: Personality Not Included By Rohit Bhargava

Earlier in the year I reviewed Tactical Transparency and said that it’s a good book for an introduction to the social media scene. However, I now feel Personality Not Included is the book I would recommend as the intro book, simply because it explores more than social media, and is about really changing the mindset of organisations from within, which is what the vast majority of organisations these days need to do. Social media is merely a byproduct and tool to helps make achieve this change in mindset easier.

There are five main thrusts to the book:

1. Find (and use) your accidental spokespeople
2. Define your personality by being unique, authentic and talkable
3. Craft a backstory people will care about
4. Conquer internal fear about embracing this change
5. Finding and using personality moments

The first half of the book is about explaining why these are important and providing many case studies of real world examples, and the second half provides steps that can be taken to bring the aforementioned concepts to reality. Of course, the steps are general guidelines and must be tweaked to be made relevant to your organisation.

Many of these concepts and steps will sound simple and intuitive to those of us who have grown up in a world where mere transactions aren’t enough anymore, but is probably difficult for the Generation X or Baby Boomer boss at work to wrap their heads around. If so, buy this book and give it to him or her, and make it an office copy after that.

There’s a really good video introduction to Personality Not Included that I encourage you to check out at the Personality Not Included blog (sorry, I couldn’t find a way to embed it on the site!)

[image taken from Flickr.com]

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Going For The Sale vs Going For The Customer

Last week, Rubin and I made a quick search for shirts that go with a tux (no, we didn’t know previously that they’re different from regular shirts). So we hit three shops in the immediate vicinity, the first two were totally aiming to make the sale. Everything from trying to get you to commit to an order, introducing “premium” materials and lowering prices to make it seem like a “discount”.

The third, we felt was more authentic right off the bat. He showed us the “normal” material and “premium” material and told us to verify for ourselves that there was no discernible difference in texture (there wasn’t), and that the important thing that tailors bring to customers is the service and customisation.

I think this approach is really about customer lifetime value. Do you go in with an affordable, knock-them-off-their-socks product that keeps them coming back for more, or are you concerned about making that one sale, and forgetting about the trust and relationship that can be formed, especially in businesses that are service-oriented?

Very different marketing approaches, but in the long run, I think aiming for retention will get better results than just attracting new customers. More word of mouth, more loyalty and more trust, which money can’t buy.

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Posted in Marketing, Singapore, case studies | 3 Comments »