What’s the one thing that would transform your business?
That’s the question Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey, has been asking. In fact, rather than turn to a board of directors or consultants, he’s going right to his most important advisors:
Twitter users.
Late last year, Dorsey posed this question to Twitter fans:
The Brian Chesky referenced in this tweet is the CEO of AirBnB who asked a similar question of his followers the week before.
Desperate or brilliant? Maybe a bit of both. But to his credit, Dorsey spent the next many days responding personally to hundreds of tweets from users who seized the opportunity and offered their opinions.
Why do this?
Twitter has clearly had its share of disappointments over the past several years. The platform isn’t growing, it is often (unfairly) compared to Facebook, and there’s been an exodus of top executives over the past several months.
All this from a social media platform that is constantly at the center of important conversations. Twitter handles and hashtags are everywhere in pop culture, whether it’s the Super Bowl, the Golden Globes, or any event or institution that matters.
The real-time quality that Twitter owns ought to be enough to make it successful, and yet growth is stalled.
If Dorsey could find that one thing that could unlock Twitter’s true potential and optimize its success, it would be an incredible marketing story. His attempt to go to his audience provides us with a fascinating look inside a major social brand. And it’s something that every radio operator would love to know.
It reminds me of the iconic scene in “City Slickers” where Curly (played by Jack Palance) talks about “the one thing” that’s the secret to life. It sounds so simple, until you try to nail down precisely what that one action step or key priority could possibly be.
Marketers know it’s rare to find that “smoking gun” – the one thing that if fixed could transform a brand – but the idea of turning to users to figure it out is a good one.
And we’re going to make the same effort in this year’s Techsurvey13 launching later this month. At the very end of the questionnaire, we’re letting our thousands and thousands of respondents weigh in on “the station that sent you the survey.”
Open-ended questions are always tricky – they’re cumbersome, difficult to code, and harder still to analyze. But in the same way that Arbitron diary comments were always riveting to those who visited the company’s headquarters in Beltsville, Laurel, or Columbia, these verbatim comments could reveal a side of the audience we simply don’t get to see via conventional questioning.
So here’s our question:
“What’s the ONE thing the station that sent you this survey could do to make you enjoy it and listen more in 2017?”
Who knows what kind of feedback we’re going to glean from this question? But considering that well more than 230 stations will participate in Techsurvey13, if just one or two is helped by the responses it produces, we will have made a significant contribution.
It starts with the process of asking the audience for feedback, and having the courage to truly listen to what they have to say. There are many questions we typically ask about our brands, but “the one thing” may be most important query of all.
Figuring it out could be the most important thing you do this year.
Beginning the process is a great way to start 2017.
Jacobs Media has consistently walked the walk in the digital space, providing insights and guidance through its well-read national Techsurveys.
In 2008, jacapps was launched - a mobile apps company that has designed and built more than 1,300 apps for both the Apple and Android platforms. In 2013, the DASH Conference was created - a mashup of radio and automotive, designed to foster better understanding of the "connected car" and its impact.
Along with providing the creative and intellectual direction for the company, Fred consults many of Jacobs Media's commercial and public radio clients, in addition to media brands looking to thrive in the rapidly changing tech environment.
Fred was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2018.
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