Kevin Colleran is Facebook Employee #2. Co-founder of the Social Media giant, he’s now 29 and a billionaire (on paper at least).
At a recent debate about “digital natives” and “digital immigrants” he suggested: “Try living a day in your customer’s media mix.” Jeffrey Rayport fleshes this out at HBR:For example, if your target customer spends five hours a day on Facebook; sends 120 text messages and half a dozen tweets a day from a smartphone and posts photos, videos, and blogs around the clock; “checks in” regularly using Foursquare at favorite retail locations to become “mayor”; relies on a plethora of mobile apps like Google Maps to get from one place to another, RedLaser to check prices on SKUs at Kroger or Best Buy, and Fashism to crowd-source advice from others while shopping; goes online at RueLaLa and GILT for flash sales just when the boutiques open; and subscribes to Groupon or LivingSocial for alerts on local deals, there’s a good chance you might want to know what it’s like to live a life like that. There’s an equally good chance that (and this was Kevin’s point) knowing what it’s like to live your customers’ media might change the way you use marketing and media to reach, influence, and interact with your customers. It might even change what you do radically.
But Kevin’s point was not simply a restating of the Golden Rule. His was a new conception of it. It could read: “Interact unto others as they would interact unto you.” Or, to put a finer point on it: “Interact unto others as they would interact with others like themselves.” Marketers who ignore Facebook’s Golden Rule will do so at their peril. You’d better trying living your customers’ lives and experiencing the immersive realities of their media mix. Then, and only then, determine yours.
Ministering is not marketing. But to what extent should pastors follow this advice?