Consumer 2.0 and How You Can Improve Your Seach Engine Marketing to Capture them

As the internet becomes more and more ingrained in our everyday lives, a new breed of consumer has emerged – Consumer 2.0. Who is this person? What makes them tick? How can you improve your social media and search engine marketing efforts to build your brand around their needs?

Who is Consumer 2.0?

Addicted to Leisure – They work hard, but they also expect a certain amount of work/life balance. They expect products and brands to conform to both aspects of their day. They want their phone to sync with Outlook while also keeping tabs of their Facebook profile.
Create and share content – In their own eyes, they’re a rockstar. They twitter, pownce, blog and YouTube everything in their life. If they like it, they share it.
Always connected and love information – They subscribe to hundreds of RSS feeds, have thousands of friends online, never leave home without their iPod or their web-enabled phone. These consumers can find what they’re looking for in a drop of hat (and expect it as well).
Hypertaskers – Forget David Allen, these consumers chat online, play games, stream music and send text messages all while watching TV. In a survey produced by Yahoo!, 60% of 18-34 year olds said they surfed the web while watching TV.
Love to be part of communities – They have multiple social network accounts and use them all on a regular basis.

As I’ve blogged about before, there are many things you can do to conform and mold your brand to meet Consumer 2.0′s expectations. It’s important to treat them with respect and dignity as they can make or break a good portion of your business.

Listen to them. – They are more than willing to tell you what they think of your product, if you simply ask. Use them as your guinea pigs for new ideas and improvements on old ones.
Collaborate with them. Just as Stromhoek, a small vineyard who collaborated with bloggers to create a grass roots initiative, so should you. Respond to their online posts and comments, answer their emails one at a time and take the initiative to create ‘wow’ experiences in your store. If you scratch their back, they’ll scratch yours as well.
Give them the tools to share. Create an online toolbox in which users can remix your brand to meet their style. Include RSS feeds, pictures, videos, music, Facebook applications, custom t-shirts and everything else they could use to evangelize your product.

So how does Search Engine Marketing tie back to Consumer 2.0? Well, because Consumer 2.0 is so intrenched and dialed in on a regular basis, they’ve developed a small case of ADD. Nearly 72% of people answered that they cannot recall URL’s that appeared on TV spots. Therefore, not only should you do the things I’ve mentioned above to gain attention online, but you should also work to control those things you do have power over.

Your search engine marketing must include using appropriate keywords so Consumer 2.0 can find your brand, creating lots of relevant content, making sure your pages are user-friendly and have appropriate titles and descriptions just to name a few. Consumers expect brand leaders to consistently be in the top results of search and I can guarantee that many will look at a site because it was one of the first results regardless if it was what they were looking for or not. Great search engine marketing increases your brand familiarity, pumps up your brand consideration, improves customer satisfaction and results in a better brand experience.

Integrating Consumer 2.0 into your marketing plans and tweaking your search engine marketing will allow you to close the loop on your customers and engage advocates. I guarantee that if you implement the above to a tee, you will see much success online and off.

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CASH courtesy of *mgwinc