The gurus of social media are talking a lot about how the rules for communicating with customers are changing, and major marketers are starting to apply them.

The crux of the new perspective shared in a seminar given by Chris Brogan and Peter Shankman was this: Companies must switch from asking themselves, “where am I advertising?” to “where am I listening?”

Companies should listen more than they talk.  Because customers are starting to listen to their “human web” or online network more than they listen to what companies themselves are saying.

This blog has already addressed (at length) the need to take a what’s-in-it-for-me (the customer) approach to putting together their marketing materials; to hear and use what the customer is saying about why they buy; and, to share valuable or useful, versus sales, information.  All of this pertains to relevance — and being heard above the din.

Scanning the web for brand-related conversations is the newest tool in the research arsenal.   Interestingly, in Web Chat can be Inspiring (see article pdf ), listening via online videos has brought IBM to the “discovery” that “potential customers tended to care less about its technologies themselves than what those technologies could do for them.” (I.e., people were talking about meetings and conversations, not VOIP and cloud delivery models.)

This should not exactly be a shock to the system (should it?!?).

The point of the article is that IBM, as well as Harrah’s and Microsoft, are starting to base their ad campaigns in part on web chatter, using what people are saying in their ad themes, content and even photos.   Then, they’re using the same Web tools to measure reaction and further hone their campaigns.

The Human Web

Back to the human web concept … and enter Customer Service.  If customers are starting to believe more in their own networks, then every company’s job is to figure out what it can do to make people like it and talk about it. Improving customer service to the point of creating evangelists is considered key to this.

The second key is interaction. If customers are talking and asking questions, they are engaged and ready to buy.  Being part of that conversation is a better sales opportunity than any ad, according to Mssrs. Brogan and Shankman.

Companies can begin to improve their interaction immediately, in many ways, even without using social media tools like blogging, Tweeting or Facebook fan pages: very simply by asking customers to engage on existing web sites; or by creating user communities or customer forums; or by commenting in online industry forums and other blogs, for example. Every touch point can be a potential means for interaction.

See What They See

There are free (blogsearch.google.com and search.twitter.com) and paid listening tools.  Starting to listen via simple search tools puts you in the customer’s shoes.  You see what they see.  This will inevitably lead to a self-evaluation, and questions like, “how strong is my own brand presence online?”  Or, to the realization that “gosh, my competitors are everywhere!”

Yes, says guru Brogan, your brand presence online is a competitive tool.

He reminds us that Google is a machine that cannot share emotion.  A basic search can never express the human element of an “I just got dumped” tweet.  Think of your own personal searches for say, hotels.  I know the first thing I look at are the reviews.

“More and more people are asking others first,” note the gurus. A new part of our mission as marketers must now be to listen, engage, and build fans that do your PR for you.

The Genesis, 2009 Car of the Year

In recent Wall Street Journal reports, things are looking up for one auto company.  But you guessed it: not an American one.

Beating last year’s worldwide decline, Hyundai’s sales rose five percent, and last week, reported that Q3 profits tripled.

What Hyundai is doing right is “a sustained corporate effort at reinvention,” notes columnist Paul Ingrassia.  Among the steps and wins he details:

- New QC initiative

- 10 year, 10,000 mile warranty to allay quality concerns

- Second-place tie with Honda in 2004 J.D. Powers Initial Quality Survey

- Genesis, its first luxury vehicle, voted 2009 Car of the Year, Detroit Auto Show

- Marketing Assurance Program allowing buyers to return their car if they lose their job with a year of purchase.  This initiative, part of its Hyundai Momentum campaign, led to Hyundai Motor America’s VP of Marketing being named Brandweek’s 2009 Grand Marketer of the Year.

Ingrassia points to several lessons for GM and Chrysler, recommending that both “make their marketing more relevant,” given global competition. (GM has recently done so with its 60-day money-back guarantee.)

A second Journal piece, Advertiser Banks on Blank Look, again features Hyundai, this time with a few bold advertising decisions:

- Buying all of the ad space in a newly-built subway station, and at three adjacent to it, plus in most of the trains, near their Seoul headquarters.

- Leaving most of that ad space blank, except for a small service icon and company logo; in other areas, “giant white panels have a pink eraser in the lower right corner and a short explanation: ‘The world is flooded with too many ads … For a short while we wanted to leave it empty for you.’”

The ads are the culmination of a 2004 identity campaign for Hyundai Capital, its consumer loan arm. Started by the company’s then-new CEO in 2003, the identity campaign helped the company re-position and grow its share from two to its current 16 percent.

This success “gave Hyundai the confidence to try its largely-blank ads,” according to Hyundai Capital’s CMO.

Inspirational?  Yes, and proof that a sustained internal effort to “reinvent” itself in response to market perceptions, plus the fortitude to produce thoughtful, relevant and remarkable (read very different) marketing, not only gets noticed, but builds the brand and impacts sales – even in tough times.