Are your customers creating signal or noise?

How do you tell if all these instruments are making music or noise?

Have you tried Qik? It’s a video network and mobile app. It (and a few more apps) make it easy to take video with your smartphone and put it on the Internet. Live.

Once you figure out how video works on your phone, it will be easier for you to post video than it will for me to type this blog post.

What are the implications?

If you have (lets take Microsoft for example) customers who are avid users of the brand and tend to be socially active blogging, tweeting, posting on Facebook, or posting on forums about their good and bad experiences with the Microsoft brand – then how as a brand marketer am I supposed to get my message through all that mess?

The answer is – you can’t!

via Is User Generated Content building a Wall between your Brand and your Customer? | Buzz Marketing for Technology.

Here’s the thing. That “mess” is actually a jumble of networks (noise). Marketers can’t get the attention of everyone. But they can get individuals’ attention. Then the individuals (those would be niches) can relay the message (signal) to their networks.

The Takeaway

If you’re looking at this from afar, all you’re going to see is the noise. But up close and personal – it’s signal. The key is to find the right individuals to relay your message.