Preface

This book aims to explore the SoLoMo experience in digital marketing. SoLoMo is a marketing approach in which Social, Local, and Mobile converge. Back in the 1960s, marketers’ job was quite straightforward. All they had to do was to come up with an informative, catchy advertisement and place it on the media (TV, radio, press, outdoor). Mom and dad would watch the advertisement to decide whether they needed to buy this product or not. Many years later, in the 1990s, marketers were already the experts in launching campaigns, conceptualizing the importance of the strong message that builds brands. People loved the branding.

Today, things are not straightforward. Modern marketers who simply launch campaigns with catchy advertising messages will eventually fail. Why? There are two reasons. The first reason is brands are different. They are not based on a catchy message telling people to do this or the other. Modern brands offer a digital experience inviting consumers to join. They shape people’s realities and offer solutions to real-life situations. As soon as the brand develops a new experience both digital and traditional marketing tools invite consumers to join.

This new digital experience demands the development of new strategies that bring closer social, mobile, and local marketing. In other words, today’s marketers are like good hosts of a big party with many guests. Not only they have to organize the party, they need to make sure the party will be successful and no guest will leave complaining. Brand reputation matters more than brand recall.

The second reason is consumers are different too. Modern consumers are elusive, tech-savvy, content-oriented, omnichannel shoppers, collaborators, and social sharers (Bolen, 2015). Trendwatching (2014) calls them presumers, producers, and consumers at the same time. Presumers are willing to buy a product or enjoy a service and then write about their experience on their personal social networks. Modern consumers are digital storytellers like marketers. With the rapid proliferation of social media and mobile devices, consumers have strengthened their position as valid opinion leaders. Who is stronger anymore? A newspaper that sells 1,000 issues a day or a Twitter user with millions of followers?

Imagine a young college student, back in 1995, who is working part-time for an electronics retail store. He takes his job seriously and gives his best to serve every customer. In our hypothetical story, his high quality of customer service is appreciated by a gentleman who kindly sends a letter to the young salesman’s supervisor, thanking him and the company for their dedication to excellence.

Today, the same customer would have done things differently. As we are all witnessing the age of digital consumers, our story’s customer would post his positive opinion on the company’s Facebook page, tweet with a relevant hashtag to his Twitter followers, give thumbs up on the product’s YouTube channel, mention his new gadget on Instagram, write on his blog, leave a review on Yelp or Google Reviews, and so on.

What has actually changed over the last 20 years? The rapid proliferation of the web and more specifically of social media have changed how people communicate, stay informed, get entertained, and do business (Qualman, 2009). Nowadays, the new consumer feels more important than the brand. He understands that his voice is enough to have an impact on other people’s decision-making process.

The new consumer is able to produce content anywhere, at any moment, and to anyone. Nothing is private anymore. Reviews, either positive or negative, are to be shared. Social networking sites are the modern megaphones of messages while consumers are using them to share their stories in far-reaching and widely public and digital avenues.

The new consumers do not simply consume or love brands. They breathe them. They produce their own content by posting or commenting on others’ posts. In addition, modern consumers are addicted to their mobile devices, checking on their smartphones, tablets, or both for almost three hours each day (Brustein, 2014). For the first time in the history of media, in 2014, people spent more time on their mobile devices than TV (Flurry Analytics, 2015).

As consumers are rapidly moving between channels and platforms, marketers are finding it so difficult to implement an integrated marketing strategy. In today’s highly cluttered digital marketing environment there is a great need for marketers to fully comprehend a new breed of consumers. For example, the modern consumer can check into a store with the use of a geolocation service (i.e., Foursquare, Google+, Facebook check-in), redeem an offer that is available only for those consumers who are online, pay with Android Pay or Apple Pay, and share his or her comments on social media.

Apparently the new consumer is not simply digitalized. The new consumer is SoLoMo. This book introduces the rising trend of SoLoMo consumers who have three basic characteristics: SOcial media engagement, LOcal findability, and phone MObility. SoLoMo stands for Social, Local, and Mobile, combining the best of all aspects of digital and traditional marketing. Smartphones are empowering consumers and transforming shopping and recreational behaviors. Shopping used to be fun. Now it is much more than that. It is a game with immediate rewards and a chance to get in touch with friends and followers. Inevitably, marketing is becoming Phygital—physical and digital work together, simultaneously and interdependently.

Through this book we aim to explore the impact of Social, Local, and Mobile characteristics on digital marketing. Why SoLoMo? SoLoMo describes the environment in which consumers share their experiences online, form digital communities, trust their peers’ reviews more than the brand’s, search for nearby stores (retails, restaurants, bars, etc.), and check in at their favorite local businesses.

In the following chapters, we will conceptualize this new mindset, while providing examples to illustrate the case. The target audiences of the book are marketing practitioners, digital marketing consultants, entrepreneurs, PR executives, and students of marketing and digital communications. The next section provides a brief description of each chapter to show a logical structure from the introduction to conclusions and future implications.