Going the Distance: Four Ways to Build a Better Customer Loyalty Program for Your Brand

It’s easy enough for a customer to join your loyalty program, especially when you’re offering an incentive such as discounts. All your customer has to do is give out some basic information, and voila! They’re in the fold, a brand new loyalty member with your company. From there, it’s happily ever after. You offer the perks; they stand solidly by you, bringing you their continued business. Simple. Or is it? In reality, just how many of those customers are act ively participating in your loyalty program? Do you know? Sure, loyalty program memberships are on the rise according to market research company eMarketer, having jumped 25 percent in the space of just two years. However, that figure may be a bit misleading. The truth is that, while loyalty program sign-ups may be more numerous, active participation in such programs is actually in decline. At the time of the study, the average US household had memberships in 29 loyalty programs; yet consumers were only active in 12 of those. That’s just 41 percent. And even that meager figure represents a drop of 2 percentage points per year over each of the preceding four years, according to a study by loyalty-marketing research company COLLOQUY.

When discounts just aren’t enough

So what’s a brand to do? How can you make your loyalty program worth your customer’s while—as well as your own? After all, gaining a new loyalty member doesn’t mean much if your customer isn’t actively participating in your program. Consider this: Does your customer loyalty program offer members anything different from what your competitors are offering? Chances are your program includes discounts. That’s a given. And what customer doesn’t appreciate a good discount? But when every other company out there is providing this staple benefit in comparable amounts, it becomes less and less likely that customers will remain loyal to any one particular brand. Frankly, it’s all too easy for customers to get lost in a sea of loyalty member discounts. They’re everywhere. In fact, just under half of internet users perceive that all rewards programs are alike, according to a 2015 eMarketer survey. The key to success, then, is to differentiate your business from the crowd. If you can offer your customers something unique and valuable beyond the usual discount, chances are they’ll be more likely to stick with your brand. Here’s some inspiration from companies who get it.

Virgin: Reward more purchases with more benefits.

That’s not to say you need to get rid of discounts entirely. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Customers still love a good discount. The goal is to be creative in terms of the loyalty perks you offer. Take the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, for example. As part of its loyalty program, the airline allows members to earn miles and tier points. Members are inducted at the Club Red tier, from which they can move up to Club Silver and then Club Gold. Here, it’s not just a discount. It’s status. And people respond to feeling important, elite. Still, even where the rewards themselves are concerned, Virgin is motivating loyalty customers with some pretty attractive offers. At the Club Red tier, members earn flight miles and receive discounts on rental cars, airport parking, hotels and holiday flights. But as members rise in tiers, they get even more. At the Club Silver tier, members earn 50 percent more points on flights, access to expedited check-in, and priority standby seating. And once they reach the top, Club Gold members receive double miles, priority boarding and access to exclusive clubhouses where they can get a drink or a massage before their flight. Now that’s some serious incentive to keep coming back for more. Discounts are still part of the equation – but they are designed with innovation and personal value in mind, elevating them to more than just savings.

Amazon Prime: Pay upfront and become a VIP.

What if your customers only had to pay a one-time upfront fee to get a year’s worth of substantial benefits? It may not sound like the smartest business idea at first glance. But take a closer look. Amazon Prime users pay a nominal $99 a year to gain free, two-day shipping on millions of products with no minimum purchase. And that’s just one benefit of going Prime. It’s true that Amazon loses $1-2 billion a year on Prime. This comes as no surprise given the incredible value the program offers. But get this: Amazon makes up for its losses in markedly higher transaction frequency. Specifically, Prime members spend an average of $1,500 a year on Amazon.com, compared with $625 spent by non-Prime users, a ccording to a 2015 report from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners.

Patagonia: Cater to customer values.

Sometimes, the draw for consumers isn’t saving money or getting a great deal. The eco-friendly outdoor clothing company Patagonia figured this out back in 2011, when it partnered with eBay to launch its Common Threads Initiative: a program that allows customers to resell their used Patagonia clothing via the company’s website. Why is this program important to customers? And how does it benefit Patagonia? The company’s brand embraces environmental and social responsibility, so it was only fitting that they create a platform for essentially recycling old clothing rather than merely throwing it away. The Common Threads Initiative helps Patagonia build a memorable brand and fierce loyalty by offering its customers a cause that aligns with deep personal values. OK, so their customers get to make a little money, too. Everybody wins.

American Airlines: Gamify your loyalty program.

If you’re going to offer your customers a loyalty program, why not make it f un? After all, engagement is key to building a strong relationship with your customer. And what better way to achieve that goal than making a game of it. American Airlines had this very thing in mind when it created its AAdvantage Passport Challenge following its merger with USAirways. The goal: find a new way to engage customers as big changes were underway. Using a custom Facebook application, American Airlines created a virtual passport to increase brand awareness while offering members a chance to earn bonus points. Customers earned these rewards through a variety of game-like activities, from answering trivia questions to tracking travel through a personalized dashboard. In the end, participants earned more than 70 percent more stamps than expected – and the airline saw a ROI of more than 500 percent. The takeaway: people like games.

Stand out from the crowd.

Your approach to your customer loyalty program should align with your overall marketing approach. Effective branding is about standing out, not blending it. Being memorable is key. To this end, keep in mind that loyalty programs are no longer a novelty. That means that yesterday’s strategies won’t work moving forward, so look for ways to rise above the noise, setting yourself apart from the cloying drone of countless other cookie-cutter programs.

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Shaping Business for the Tribe

Previously, in our articles Tribes in Today’s Marketing and Mastering Tribe Marketing, we explored how the marketplace is represented by countless networks of people who are connected by a common interest or goal – known as tribes – and how successful business growth is rooted in attaining leadership in those tribes and putting the principles of trustcasting into practice. Now we shift our focus to an outside-in examination of how the influence of tribes extends beyond promotion to shape how today’s businesses operate and evolve.

The old way

For any organization large or small, achieving a thorough understanding of its target market has always been fundamental to growth and long-term success. However, the task of gaining this knowledge has historically been a difficult process. It required a significant and ongoing investment of time and resources in fact-finding through surveys, focus groups, opinion polls and demographic studies – all in the name of formulating a more detailed profile of the customer, their attributes, their needs and their preferences. But in the same way that old advertising has been rendered ineffectual in today’s consumer-centric marketplace, these types of market studies have likewise become obsolete. Such disconnected, impersonal methods of information gathering are often too skewed, too broad or based on too thin an audience segment, ultimately falling short in delivering the depth of insight needed to engage in meaningful, trust-based relationships with the customer. More importantly, these outmoded forms of market research are not taken seriously by the majority of participants and thus fail to elicit the honest, thoughtful responses needed to understand what they really want, what truly drives their decision making and what actually motivates them to action. However in today's tribe-driven marketplace, the answers are right there in front of you.

Know thy customer, the tribe way

Simply by being an active participant in the tribe, you will gain an intimate understanding of your customers.If there is one thing that tribe marketing affords today's business, it is the ability to identify, engage and lead the community of customers that exists around it. You must understand that your tribe represents your customer base. While every one of your customers may not be active in the tribe, its membership is a reliable sample of all customers – especially those that can be the most passionate evangelists for your business. Therefore, attaining membership and demonstrating leadership in your tribe gives you invaluable access to your customers. Simply by being an active participant in the tribe, you will gain an intimate understanding of your customers, their lifestyle, their wants, their dislikes and their needs. It’s a deceptively simple concept: earn your place in the tribe by being one with its goals and serving its interests, and you will achieve unparalleled insight into the marketplace where your customers exist because you yourself are a part of it. However, it is then that the real work begins.

Listen, learn and integrate

When you’re a member of your tribe, you will be exposed to brutal honesty. The tribe is not there for you; they are there for the tribe. They will discuss their issues candidly and openly. They will likely complain and may at times be crass. This is not the type of polite, shallow input you receive from a survey or a customer comment card that is filled out hastily under the watchful eye of the clerk at the front counter. These are real issues being voiced by real people with real needs. You must be prepared to have your feelings hurt and develop a thick skin. However difficult it may be, it is important to absorb these opinions in their most raw form. If you’ve made the investment in earning your place in the tribe, you can take this process one step further and engage its members in your business operation. Let the tribe know what you are doing. Ask for feedback. Ask for honesty. Ask what’s wrong and how you can do better. Whatever you do, don’t attempt this unless you are a bona fide member, or you’ll find yourself being ignored, being fed ineffectual information or even being ousted from the tribe for conducting market research as an outsider. Ultimately, the benefit of being in the presence of such brutal honesty is that it often brings to light problems or weaknesses within your organization as well as untapped possibilities for growth. These may come in the form of an employee that they dislike, a product feature that they hate, an inconvenience you should correct or a void in the marketplace that is ripe for a solution. You may even find bigger issues to address: Maybe your product isn’t what’s needed. Maybe it needs to evolve. Maybe you need to rethink everything. Whether big or small, the problems and obstacles that you uncover by listening and engaging are invaluable to long-term success when you use what you’ve learned to direct the evolution of your organization in order to continue growing with your tribe.

Letting go and following the tribe

As the one charged with growing your organization, you’re probably used to doing things your way. However, if you are going to serve the needs of your tribe, you must take a step back and re-examine every aspect from the perspective of its members. You must not only preach the mantra, “The customer is king,” but live it through and through. You must not only preach the mantra, “The customer is king,” but live it through and through. It’s important to understand that your tribe represents the loudest, most opinionated and most critical subsection of your customer base. The honest, unfiltered information to which you have access as a member of this inner circle allows you to make changes to your product or service that will satisfy your most demanding customers. If you can placate these early adopters, loyalists and core users, then you will be ahead of the curve in not only meeting but exceeding the needs of your greater customer base. Should you give them what they want, they will wave the flag for you, giving you invaluable PR and unbiased word-of-mouth marketing the likes of which no amount of money can buy. This is not to say that you should make sweeping changes to your products, services, operations or processes based on the fleeting whim of each and every vocal customer. Quite the opposite is true, in fact. This is about getting to know the whole of your tribe – identifying the desires, problems and goals that are common to the greatest number – and applying your own ideas and innovation toward reshaping your product or service offering to provide solutions that address these needs.

Setting your tribe on fire

People instinctively long to be a part of something meaningful. Another aspect of reshaping your business around your tribe is finding a way to inspire them. The members of your tribe have the greatest potential to become your most ardent evangelists, but only if you can connect with them on a deeper level. People instinctively long to be a part of something meaningful. They crave outlets that allow them to engage in their passions. They are ready to carry the torch for those who they see doing good. Let’s say you own the corner coffee shop. Who is your tribe, and what is it about your offering that inspires them? Perhaps your tribe is made up of people who are passionate about organic or fair trade coffee. Or maybe the atmosphere of your store represents the culture and sophistication of urban lifestyle, and that’s what excites them. It could be that your tribe feels strongly about patronizing locally-owned businesses, and you offer Charlotte’s best coffee, so they find meaning in supporting your shop with their dollars. It’s possible that inspiring your tribe will require you to tell a story that’s greater than your direct product or service offering. Perhaps the members of your tribe are highly attuned to social and political issues that affect their community. Let’s say you decide to raise $50,000 this year to support local charities that assist homeless families, and you pledge that 25 cents from every cup of coffee you sell will be applied toward that goal. People will be proud to be seen carrying your cup because of who you are and what you do. The logo on that cup then becomes the secret handshake for the members of your tribe. There’s no advertising campaign, no marketing gimmick and no customer rewards card that can rival a tribe that is inspired. If you attach greater meaning to what you do, you give your tribe a reason to shout your message from the rooftops and proudly embrace your identity as part of their own. In this way, you’ll become more than a brand, you’ll become a revolution.

Tribes crave ideas

If you find that what you’re doing doesn’t light a tribe on fire, it’s time to invest in the white space of creating ideas. Today’s business is idea-based. Great ideas require a willingness to take a risk, to challenge the status quo and to do something revolutionary. This runs counter to traditional business thinking, which tends toward minimizing risk whenever possible. However, a tribe-driven marketplace has no tolerance for those who play it safe. Apple has sold two million iPads within the first 60 days of launch in the midst of an economic downturn because they hit on an idea for a new category of mobile device that set their tribe on fire. Great ideas require a willingness to take a risk, to challenge the status quo and to do something revolutionary. Amélie’s in Charlotte has achieved monumental growth because they took a concept usually found in much larger metropolitan locations – a 24-hour authentic French bakery and cafe – and brought it to a tribe of urban foodies that were primed for something new and different. Bucking conventional restaurant industry wisdom about the necessity of turning tables quickly, they instead welcome the members of their tribe to stay and linger, transforming their offering from a commodity to a culture and winning a following of loyal and vocal evangelists as a result. Tribes are ready and waiting for the next big thing that is going to solve a problem, meet a need or make their lives better. If you’re the one that delivers that idea, they’ll rally around you, spread your message like wildfire and fan the flames of your success.

There’s no shame in being small

The downfall of many small businesses when it comes to advertising and business growth is trying to act like a large business in order to increase their perceived legitimacy and trustworthiness in the eyes of the customer. However, in today’s tribe-driven marketplace, small businesses actually have a clear and distinct advantage. In fact, more and more, it is the large business that is trying to emulate and keep pace with the local mom-and-pop operation. Trust is earned when real people connect with real people. It is very hard for a large corporation to be real to anybody. In fact, when it happens, it’s because they have found a way to provide the level of personal service and engagement with the tribe that would typically be expected of a small business. In today’s tribe-driven marketplace, small businesses actually have a clear and distinct advantage. AT&T tried this with “Seth the Blogger Guy.” Recognizing that they couldn’t just run ads saying that they were working on the problem, they crafted a fake persona to represent AT&T to its tribe. They thought presenting customers with an unassuming-looking character on a first-name basis with the audience would be sufficient to cultivate trust-based relationships. This is false tribe leadership, and tribes are not so easily fooled. Conversely, Frank Eliason of telecommunications giant Comcast has established a customer service program that offers the kind of highly personalized touch that would ordinarily be more characteristic of the neighborhood florist. He has built a reputation for approaching problems with a genuine passion for resolving problems and following through on what is promised to achieve a positive outcome. As a result, over time people have given Frank and his team their trust, and they trust Comcast more as a result. Another great example is Mellow Mushroom – a very successful pizza restaurant chain with sales in the millions. However, their success is due in no small part to the fact that when you enter a Mellow Mushroom, nothing – from the menu to the decor to the staff – resembles a chain. They have identified their tribe, and they are catering to it. If Mellow Mushroom suddenly decided that they needed to look more sophisticated, more polished and more corporate, their tribe would quickly abandon them and follow the next place to come along and offer the casual, unrefined ambiance of a college dive bar. In this way, there is great possibility for small businesses. Your tribe inherently expects you to be real and to be personal, and as a result, they are predisposed to trust you. Don’t fall into the trap of trying to force your organization to be something it’s not. Remain focused on listening to your tribe and molding your operations around what you see and hear as an active member of your core customer base.

All for the tribe

The facts are simple: if you want to grow and thrive in today’s marketplace, your organization, your business operations and your products or services must be shaped by and around the tribe. If what you have to offer doesn’t fit your tribe, you have an obligation to listen to them, identify their needs and grow your business in that direction. If a competitor does it before you, you’ll be facing a mountain that’s immeasurably harder to climb.

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The Culture of the Web

Today there exists an enormous divide between those that understand and participate in the culture of the Web and those that do not. This chasm runs deeper than just a generation gap, and there’s more to conquering it than simply being born into the Digital Age. The Internet is a nation in and of itself, and its culture is as real and nuanced as that of any country under the sun. It’s driven by information traveling instantaneously through billions of connections that function organically as a single collective, creating, defining and shaping its own distinct code of conduct, conversation, humor, protocol and even etiquette.

Why is this important?

Nowhere is this rift of understanding more apparent or consequential than in marketing. For the casual user, it’s not as important to grasp every nuance. However, if you want to do business and make an impact in this self-made, self-ruled culture, you must learn what makes it tick. You must be a part of its collective and discern the unifying elements that drive what its people, its tribes and its ruling class do, think, accept, feel, follow and react to – and why. These governing principles aren’t published in any how-to pamphlet or printed on a membership card. There are no clear signs posted along the way. To know Web culture, you must simply be a part of its collective in every way.

Living in the Internet

True mastery of the Web and its culture comes from living and breathing it day in and day out. Reading what’s popular. Participating in discussion. Paying attention to reactions. Observing as the collective expands its knowledge, evolves its sense of humor, chooses what it hates and likes – all building upon a foundation of shared experience. These are the fundamental aspects that must be second nature to anyone charged with growing your business – whether that’s you or your marketing agency:

Ruled by tribes of trusted elite	A collective sense of humor	Celebrity
A language and customs of its own	An economy of attention	Gaming as a social connection
The need to belong	The trust barrier	Homebases
Addicted to sharing	Anti-corporate by default	Greater good
In the know	Freedom above all	Be one
Web time is real time	Tech-centric

Failure to not only recognize and comprehend but also to be active in Web culture will greatly increase the risk that any marketing venture you undertake will be ineffectual and ultimately unsuccessful.

Ruled by tribes of trusted elite

Early on, the Internet began to cleverly devise ways to sift through millions of pieces of information to elevate popular stuff, bury hated stuff or otherwise separate from the unremarkable. In doing so, clearer vision began to take hold on what was worthy of attention and what wasn’t, based on the collective’s opinion. From this, very active users began to shape the very fabric of the Internet collective, and the organism evolved to trust those in its elite class. These collections of loud voices that think alike and swarm together can sway nearly anything. Old Spice, Barack Obama, Victoria Secret and Conan O’Brien all know the power of the Internet ruling class. They know who have the megaphones, passion and resources in their market and they had marketing people who were part of those tribes. Building upon the foundations of the Web’s culture, your marketing entity must know how the ruling classes are formed and how they move in every circumstance in order to execute with pinpoint precision and make waves of customers.

A language and customs of its own

The language of the Web is probably one of the most easily understood and heavily evolved foundations of the collective. ‘LOL’s are somewhat ubiquitous, but if your marketing agency doesn’t know why a ROFLcopter is funny, the essence in the difference between FAIL and WIN or what it means to be ‘pwned’ then, believe it or not, you lack fundamental pieces of understanding needed to take hold of the Internet and communicate with its culture in every way. Beyond simple shorthand, there is the issue of etiquette and protocol. The Web collective has evolved its own rules for what’s acceptable and what is shunned. It may seem silly, but everything from understanding what it means to encapsulate a word with asterisks to shying away from the investment of personal communication, you or your marketing company must be one with its protocols, even if you aren’t marketing to people that adopt the understanding of. Like all cultures, knowing your boundaries and assimilating yourself into its protocol is essential to go beyond baby steps. You can get by, but you’ll never truly connect on a mass scale.

The need to belong

In our series on understanding and marketing to tribes, we covered the anatomy of a tribe—why people connect with each to form followings of an idea and how they collectively rule the marketplace. The foundation of tribes is passion around something—an idea, lifestyle or movement. The truth is, the Web collective is broken up into thousands of movements stemming from one root motivation: the need to be a part of something. This is why successful websites whose goals are centered on building a vast and passionate community around its brand or purpose institute point systems and accomplishment badges to reward participation. Understanding why people not only connect themselves to a group or community, but feel rewarded by recognition of contribution to the group is fundamental to connecting with the Web collective overall. Auxiliary to this is the “15-minutes-of-fame” motivation. Most people are motivated by the opportunity to be featured in higher esteem for outstanding contribution. Elements such as “the most popular photo of the day” or “most video views” reward the creator or contributor by putting him or her in the spotlight.

Addicted to sharing

Members of the collective like to broadcast what they like, what they find interesting, funny, etc. This explains how great ideas go viral. People inherently want to share things they find striking. When something great happens in the same way its users want to belong, they want to take ownership of it. That great thing becomes a part of them, because it’s a part of everybody. For example, a funny joke you get from Internet strikes you as hilarious, so you take that joke and you share it with your name on it. A piece of it is yours because you blessed it, posted it, passed it along. Your name becomes part of it. It’s expressing you. Because you found it and shared it, you have partial ownership of it.

In the know

News in the Information Age is available everywhere as it happens. No longer are a select few allowed to report and distribute news. Every member of the Web culture has a cell phone, camera and a way to distribute news at the fingertips. When events happen, information is moved through the collective, news is discussed, debated, evaluated and classified based on decisions made that organize and shape news within the Web. As a result, almost all people connected to the Web take very little at face value. Its people are very informed. The culture’s approach to news is one based on hard data and facts, wide-area access and sharing, and the inherent power to sift through the noise and elevate news of importance within its tribes of interest. Additionally, the Web is the permanent record. It is not a culture that forgets. History is made every day and the decisions of the Web collective serve to build a foundation of information, learning and growing as time marches on.

Web time is real time

Life on the Web moves every bit as fast as the lives of the individuals that comprise its vast collective. The lines between how people behave, relate and interact online and offline are constantly growing less distinct. The advent of social media has been a defining moment in the evolution of Web culture, as we’ve all become reporters in our own right. The immediacy of sharing has fed the human need for connection, fueling a never-ending stream of status updates, wall posts and tweets. If someone discovers a favorite new sushi place, their Facebook friends likely know about it before they even leave the restaurant. Likewise, if someone has a negative experience with a customer service rep for their cable company, chances are good they’ll vent about it on Twitter as soon as they hang up the phone. While this type of information exchange may seem mundane or even meaningless, if you’re the sushi place or the cable company, it won’t be long before you feel its effects. As news and information passes from one circle of friends to another, it adds to and reshapes the collective conscience. As a result, the time lapse between the occurrence of an event and its entry into the greater awareness is shrinking. You must be constantly plugged in to be able to trace trends and follow the ebb and flow of public sentiment. It’s not enough to be a passive observer on the sidelines; you have to jump in and be one with the community if you want to have a clear view.

A collective sense of humor

More than 250,000 people listen to Jim Gaffigan’s thoughts on Twitter. When a hilarious observation hits, 50,000 people take it, re-tweet it, re-post it and share it with their hundreds of connections, sending it through the veins of Web culture and ultimately assimilating it into its foundation to reshape opinion and unify the collective’s unified sense of humor. The Internet is just like any small group of people and its various relationships. All of its collective experiences are one big every growing foundation of inside jokes, repeating history and new creations being build upon, carried on, evolved, passed around, remixed and collectively laughed over again and again. YouTube understood this in 2007, when for April Fools’ Day the video broadcaster made a move to solidify its membership with the Internet collective, hacking its own home page and forced every click to be redirected to the ubiquitous Rick Astley video tied to the mega-meme ‘Rick-rolling’. Again, knowing why Rick Rolling is funny does nothing for you directly. It’s knowing why it and other Internet memes and viral phenomena are funny to the collective that separates the successful Internet marketer from one just pretending to be one.

An economy of attention

The culture of the Web operates on an economy of attention that is based on self-fulfillment and instant gratification. In the days when traditional media like newspapers and TV were the primary arbiters of information gathering and sharing, choice was limited, so everything was structured around creating captive audiences and force-feeding them information. Members of the Internet collective are active seekers and searchers, not passive consumers. Knowing that they have an infinite array of options at their disposal, they pursue only what interests them most, and they quickly dismiss anything that doesn’t immediately grab them as being relevant, meaningful or enjoyable. How quickly? Research has shown that it takes as little as 50 milliseconds for visitors to formulate an impression and determine their opinion of a website. As a result, your greatest competitor in the culture of the Web is time. The challenge that you must meet is not only to capture attention but to provide direct meaning and value upfront in order to prove why you’re a place to come back to.

The trust barrier

The Web collective is inherently untrusting. The Internet itself is a nation without laws, and there is always some degree of transparency lacking that cannot be entirely satisfied. Therefore, it is incumbent upon the collective to sift through its own content and distill the legitimate from the illegitimate. Its members approach this task with a wary eye, looking for reasons not to trust. Anywhere they land, they are on alert for red flags – anything from bad design and fake photos to incorrect information and over-the-top testimonials – that indicate a site unworthy of further time and attention. Authority is issued from within the collective by way of opinion. Comments, reviews and popularity form the basis for trust, and its people feed off the assessments of other like-minded individuals. Peer validation is the hallmark of Web culture. No matter what you do or what you sell, if enough people love it and vouch for you within their own circles of influence, you’ll be successful. Without this, you face a significant burden of proof to overcome the natural skepticism of the collective.

Anti-corporate by default

While Web culture is instinctively mistrustful, it reserves a special degree of cynicism for all things corporate. The reasons why abound, but they are in no small part the product of decades of traditional, carpet-bombing marketing and its battery of empty promises, hollow gimmicks and self-serving promotion. The fabric of the Web collective is comprised of personal connections. Corporate entities are regarded as intrinsically impersonal and therefore existing outside of this culture. In fact, this anti-corporate stance is a point of pride and a rallying cry, creating an environment that is quick to identify and ridicule those companies that don’t understand the culture and its mores. The only ones allowed in are those that earn their way legitimately by building trust through the demonstration of listening and responding to the needs of the collective. In short, all things being equal, as a corporate entity, you start below zero. Attempting to market to the collective as an outsider that is disengaged from its culture is downright offensive and will result in your brand being at best ignored and at worse severely penalized. This is why trustcasting is essential. The only successful approach to getting and keeping customers in Web culture is through an ongoing commitment to building and maintaining trust – a highly personal approach to business growth that requires developing authentic, two-way relationships within the collective and engaging them with honesty and respect. (Read more about Trustcasting in the Web Marketing Universe.)

Freedom above all

The spirit of the Web is freedom: freedom of access, freedom of choice and freedom of distribution. The openness of the Web is the very reason for its existence. As such, the flag flown by the Internet nation is one of self-protection from that which poses a threat to the unrestricted flow of information upon which the Web was founded. Its people promote elements that provide more access and suppress those that oppose it. The stark contrast in the performance of the business models behind the New York Times and Facebook is one of the best examples of this. The New York Times, a longstanding bastion of news once regarded within the industry as the nation’s “newspaper of record,” has waffled on its choice of how to deliver information while keeping its traditional revenue model intact, leaning towards a subscriber-based system that restricts access without purchase. While this protects the profitability of the New York Times to some degree, it limits its distribution versus other news sources. Whether this works for the publication or not is really beside the point. The culture of the Web outright shuns the paper’s outmoded approach, openly criticizing it and its decision-makers’ policies. Facebook hit on success quickly, growing into a billion-dollar company practically overnight. Its model was non-restrictive, allowing unintrusive ads to be run alongside the application rather than garnering revenue through paid access. It is easily embraced by the culture because it is open, provides incredible utility that betters the life of its users and listens and responds to the demands of the collective.

Tech-centric

As the Web itself represents the broadest and most powerful form of technology itself, its people and culture are inherently centered around technology. Its collective is not only tech-aware, but tech savvy. They want to improve their lives with technology. They want to do more with less. In their quest to find better information faster and from everywhere, the people that make up the culture of the Web are built on a high-level of understanding for software, hardware and data. The culture is constantly looking for new ideas, concepts and technology that allows the Web to be used in a more useful and efficient manner. As a result, the Web propagates technology through itself. Its members and ruling class have new technology on high receive and are connoisseurs for new ideas, passing them through the conversation, adapting them to their lives and spreading the word on how it affects their lives.

Celebrity

In the same way the cult of personality has shaped our culture since the advent of television, the Internet collective and its ruling classes proudly evolve its own methods of reaction and shaping celebrity influence. No one person created the book on Chuck Norris jokes, each an ongoing, comical demonstration of how Mr. Norris’ super-human presence is supreme in every facet. The Internet collective invented, cultivated and spread this ongoing joke with his celebrity. Google itself even jumps on the bandwagon: Is this knowledge, by itself, helpful in marketing? No. However, understanding how the Web culture shapes and is shaped by celebrity is the mark of a great Internet marketer. Knowing what is played out and what will ring with millions is the mark of one that is in touch with Web culture. The Old Spice shower spokesman’s demeanor, speech and jokes are not, in and of themselves, remarkable. It’s knowing the complete package and why it will connect and spread in a way no traditional advertising on any medium could have ever done.

Gaming as a social connection

The Web is one-half work and one-half pleasure. In fact, it could be argued that electronic gaming served as the genesis of the Web collective as we know it today. Electronic gaming is a core part of Web culture, and the industry commands far more influence than Hollywood. With the evolution of social gaming such as Zynga’s FarmVille and Mafia Wars, every new game published forms its own groups and followings, bringing people together and allowing them opportunities to share their experiences. Within the collective, language, protocol and humor are just a few of the many facets that continue to be shaped by the massive online gaming community. In the same way celebrities, movies and TV shows have shaped our culture for decades, gaming is not only a fundamental piece of the Internet but a defining touchstone of Web culture.

Homebases

In the Internet universe, people proudly set up shop in various places. Knowing why certain subsets of the collective bind themselves to certain homebases is yet another key to understanding Web culture. Facebook is ubiquitous. There is hardly a soul that’s not connected to it. However, if Facebook fulfilled everything, Flickr, Tumblr, Twitter, forums and hundreds of thousands of other sites wouldn’t exist. As an example, photos posted on Facebook are usually for the personal enjoyment of family and friends. Photos posted on Flickr are more prone to be critiqued and elevated based on the critical eye of other photographers. What you think is a good photo in your album on Facebook may not stand out on Flickr or anywhere else. Knowing the difference between these homebases, the nuances that distinguish one community from another and why people plant their flag in one place and not others is critical when reaching out and building a community of your own.

Greater good

The Web is like any other nation. It is crafted by people for people. It not only represents a collective consciousness but a collective with a conscience. Its members recognize problems and flock to help those in need. Like any other good democracy, its people not only look to better their own lives but also the lives of others. The power of the Web to shine a spotlight on the ills of society and instantly raise awareness among millions of the problems in the world is a phenomenon never before seen in human history. Because knowledge and freedom reign supreme on the Web, the pen continues to be the mightier than the sword, as access to and distribution of information on a mass scale lead to action that moves mountains. Inherent in every member of the Web’s culture is an activist – someone ready and willing to take up a flag for a cause they believe in. Armed with the understanding of the power of one person and one idea to change the world, members of Web culture hunger for the opportunity to rally others and attack problems head-on.

Be one

The Web collective represents the most vast and most complex social system on the planet. Its parts are many, diverse and constantly in motion. It is ever-growing and ever-evolving. Everyone is a part of it, and it touches every facet of their lives – they play in it, work in it, do business in it and are entertained by it. The points we’ve covered do not map an instructive path nor provide magic beans of knowledge that unlock the secret to winning customers on the Web. While each might seem unimportant or even trivial in and of itself, you can’t begin to comprehend the collective and what makes it tick without this greater perspective. If you are looking to grow your business or set your next idea on fire, you or your marketing firm must be one with this culture and all of its defining characteristics. You must speak its language, appreciate its sense of humor and know why certain things spread virally while others get buried immediately. In today's marketplace, it is this fundamental understanding that sets the successful Internet marketer apart from one that merely takes a shot in the dark and hopes for the best.

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