I have evolved beyond the social customer; I am now a social predator. I am more mobile, the weapons I use to find and grade your business and services are now at my finger tips always. I use a rich suite of applications on my IPhone that lets me find you anywhere I am. It doesn’t matter if you are a theatre, pharmacy, gas station, hospital, bank, hotel, bar or restaurant, I can find you in seconds and read about your products and services. I am your brand’s best friend or your worst nightmare, you decide. I own your brand. I can rip right through your brand so fast you will bleed to death before you get to me. And hundreds of people in my social networks will read all about your greatness or your weakness before you can do anything about it.
My Weapons Include:
- My smart mobile device, IPhone 4
- AroundMe gets me to you and knows where I am in any city
- Yelp provides me with an instant gratification platform that can make your brand bleed.
- TripAdvisor provides me with an audience in the thousands that trusts me.
- FaceBook and Twitter connect me directly to my networks globally and now my friends read my trustworthy reviews from Yelp and TripAdvisor here.
- BC reader my latest IPhone app lets me scan your business card quickly into my contacts.
You don’t own your brand experience anymore the social predators do. In the swamp under my tree lay the discarded carcasses of many brands that did not see me coming; only a few noticed me and reached out to me. They paid the price in bad reviews for shabby service and products and never knew why the customers went to a competitor. In many ways I am your competitor but I do not seek bad service and yearn to write about it. I have the simplest of taste, I only want the best. In fact most of my reviews of your products and services have been positive, and if you look closely most of the social predator brethren’s reviews are of the same ilk. And most importantly I can do nearly all of this without a significant investment, Yelp is free as is TripAdvisor and so is AroundMe, but I did pay for my IPhone and some of the apps.
When I joined TripAdvisor in March I would never have imagined it now has over 40 million reviews; here are my most recent TripAdvisor stats and hundreds of people had read my reviews, I know because TripAdvisor sends me the stats.
Trip Advisor Reviews:
November 4, 2010 Carmel Ranch: One of the Best Experiences in California and Best Value
Rating 5.0
Oct 15 2010 Berkeley: Hotel Shattuck Plaza: There is No Service like No Service
Rating 2.0
July 14 2010: Medford: Rogue Regency Inn: Great Value and Location
Rating 4.0
July 13 2010: Portland : Westin Portland: Over Priced Without Air Conditioning and Service
Rating 2.0
June 11 2010: New York City Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers: Shabby and Unsecure
Rating 3.0
May 21 2010: Orlando Hilton: Elegance in the Humditiy: Rating 5.0
April 30 2010: Bloomington: Sofitel: Rating 5.0
March 8 2010 Houston: The Houstonian: Class in Houston: Rating 5.0
March 8 2010: Healdsburg: DuChamp Class in Healdsburg: Rating 4.0
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On Yelp I am known as the "The Guy from Gloucester" nearly 700 people have reviewed my profile, here are my stats from Yelp. I have reviewed 38 restaurants, and have posted six review updates. Below is the synopsis of my reviews which I believe are very fair.
Net/Net
Know your social customers; there are many more of us every day. As a consumer of products and services, I feel tremendously empowered by the ability to express my opinion in the hope of changing a poor experience into a better one. I want more value for my money in this age of global economic restructuring, because now I have morphed into a new consumer, and I can be your social predator if you ignore me.
Earlier this year I became a social customer and posted two blogs about my experiences I am a Social Customer “Know Me You Get My Business and I Promote Yours” http://thesocialcustomer.com/peterauditore1/25670/i-am-social-customer, and I quickly became a mobile social customer, The Social Customer Goes Mobile, http://thesocialcustomer.com/peterauditore1/28039/social-customer-goes-mobile.
I feel even more empowered now by the fact that hundreds of people will see my reviews and some will trust my judgment. Last Friday I had a poor service experience with a manager in the wine department at a high end super market, I Yelped it, but have not gotten a response back yet. Many businesses are not prepared for the social customer, let alone the social predator. In the course of reviewing ten hotels and writing 38 restaurant reviews I have been contacted only three times by the business I reviewed, The Sheraton and Towers in New York City gets it, so does La Costanera a Peruvian restaurant in California and The Bastille Café and Bar in Ballard WA, gets it. Why don’t you? Knowing the social customer is no doubt a competitive advantage today. Until next time I wish you great marketing and selling in the millennium.
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