Social Media Strategy & Engagement Marketing by Karl Long

In the latest installment of what seems to be a perpetual topic for me is how google is going to eat everyone’s lunch, including Microsoft (that was the headline to a post in october last year, and Febuary last year I said that google was going to eat yahoo’s lunch).

The latest installment is a staggering concept, a cheap google pc sold at walmart.

So what? Lindows tried that, peoplePC tried something similar, some laptops are so cheap now what’s the difference.

The difference is Customer Experience… Google has proven it can develop world class, easy to use software, search, email, maps, shopping, oh and it’s figured out how to provide the software free and supported through unobtrusive, profitable, advertising. What’s the betting that this pc has wireless built in, that’s also ad supported? There are a few companies that are going to be sideswiped by this, who’s heads are going to be spinning in a years time wondering what the hell happened.

Everyone may role there eyes when I say google is successful because they provide the best Customer Experience, and that’s because many people think Customer Experience means bells and whistles, or features etc. No Customer Experience is the balance between business goals and customer needs. It is understanding that customer needs is not a static point in time, but a gradient, a relationship curve with increasing trust, engagement, promise and reward. Google with it’s perpetual beta software and “invite only” strategies, where not thinly veiled attempts at “viral” marketing, they were genuine attempts to test and refine they’re software, which probably cost them a tonne of money initially, and would have been a tough sell at other companies. In the end it comes down to integrity, I don’t mean being good, I mean that everything in the Customer Experience “hangs together” and has functional integrity, communication, matches experience, promise matches expectation. If it’s beta, then don’t say it’s the best thing since sliced bread, and let the customer be an active participant in the development process. Companies are changing, they are no longer monolithic entities with walls for borders that separates the customer from the company. Many online services are no longer “value chains”, they are “value networks” that include customers as participants in the value creation process.

But I digress, the google PC is going to be something to behold, and if people think $400 a share is a lot, take a look in a years time.