This time of year, media outlets are looking back on the big news from the previous 12 months while marketers and consultants are predicting what’ll be big in the year to come. Early this morning, an e-newsletter from http://www.trendwatching.com/ hit my inbox, touting the “11 Crucial Consumer Trends for 2011.” These are clearly “consumer” trends, but as I scanned through them, I quickly realized that nearly every one of them is either a perfect fit for libraries or a great opportunity to pursue something new for 2011.
Trendwatching’s full list is worth a read, but here I’m excerpting a handful of them (not all were relevant so my list has some gaps) with some thoughts on how libraries could get in on some of the action.
1. Random Acts of Kindness
As we generally become more and more comfortable sharing everything about our lives online, brands are realizing that it’s less and less Big Brother-ish to jump in and engage with Random Acts of Kindness in response to what’s going on in consumers’ personal lives. For brands in the marketplace, it seems a lot like Random Acts of Free Stuff. For libraries, this could translate to Random Acts of Reference.
Trendwatching says:
Fueling the R.A.K. trend is brands’ ability to actually know
what’s happening in consumers’ lives (good or bad!), as
people publicly and knowingly disclose (from Facebook to
Twitter) more and more about their daily lives, their moods or
their whereabouts.
Maybe someone expresses interest in a historic landmark in your city? Hit them back with some info about it. Or maybe someone complains about some spotty wifi at Starbucks? That’s a perfect opportunity to remind them about your awesome free wifi.
3. Pricing Pandemonium
With all these real-time, group-based, ad hoc offers for great deals on products we never thought we wanted in the first place (I haven’t owned serious home audio equipment in years, but I randomly bought a fancy set of speakers on Black Friday just because it was an amazing deal), it’s easy for Joe Consumer to forget that libraries offer products and services freely.
Trendwatching says:
Always-on connectivity is changing consumer spending habits in myriad ways.
For example, coupon clipping required planning and dedication, hence wasn’t
that popular with consumers more interested in the here and now
(see NOWISM), but now is a near-effortless online activity.
Libraries can ride on this trend by bootsrapping their “push” marketing tactics to make possible agile, ad hoc, single-subject e-blasts on a regular basis. I love getting daily emails from, say, Newegg.com. It’s not noise as long as it’s easy to scan. If Trendwatching is right about this one, your monthly e-newsletter digest will get lost among all the constant flow crazy discount offers in the consumer marketplace.
5. Online Status Symbols
I have to admit, I’m still a bit slow in getting in on the growing number of check-in, location-based social media applications. I’ve been witness to several mayorial oustings and have been in awe of the tenacious effort my friends put forth to achieve the coups, but I’ve just never embraced that much myself. For those who do play the game, though, the online status symbols are a big deal.
Trendwatching says:
In 2011, you can’t go wrong supplying your (online-loving)
customers with any kind of symbol, virtual or ‘real world’ that
helps them display to peers their online contributions,
interestingness, creations or popularity.
Libraries can get in on this action by rewarding their online power users with real or virtual status symbols.
7. Social-lites and Twinsumers
For years, brands have been looking at ways to leverage data about their customers into increased conversion rate, and as this trend evolves, it’s becoming more and more driven toward social data and turning consumers into marketers. Keeping apace with trends in the consumer marketplace in 2011 will mean give your patrons as many chances to “like” you and talk about you as possible, and rewarding them when they do. This
Trendwatching says:
Consumers will talk more about brands in 2011 than ever before,
and opportunities for brands that create engaging content that
consumers want to share, or that have personalities that actually
engage consumers will also be bigger than ever. Making it easy
for SOCIAL-LITES to retweet or ‘like’ this content is of course
requirement number one.
And Trendwatching’s real-world example from Amazon is a perfect opportunity for libraries to copy:
Amazon now enables users to integrate their Facebook and
Amazon accounts. The feature allows Amazon to connect through
to a user’s social network, then base recommendations (think books,
DVDs and musicians) upon the information found in his/her
Facebook profile.
9. Planned Spontaneity
When communication is always on and always real-time, we don’t to plan structure—we plan spontaneity.
Trendwatching says:
Expect to see consumers in 2011 rushing to sign up to
services (the PLANNED part) that allow for endless and
almost effortless MASS MINGLING with friends, family, colleagues
or strangers-who-may-become-friends-or-dates (the SPONTANEITY
part ;-)
Hearing about a library program a month in advance might just not work with spontaneous patrons’ schedules. On the other hand, location-aware, real-time communication tools open up opportunities to attract a spontaneous crowd of visitors to your locations for events. It all starts with libraries actively participating in those social media outposts in real time.
10. Eco Superior
Libraries are definitely rocking the “green” angle, but in 2011, that may not be enough: we have to highlight our superiority in other ways too if we want to get keep our edge.
Trendwatching says:
Expect to see a number of leading brands in 2011 switch from
purely marketing their products’ sustainability and eco-friendliness
(with its niche reach) and taking aim right at the heart of traditional
alternatives: stressing the superior quality and design, increased
durability and/or lower running costs of products in ways that will appeal
to even the most eco-skeptic, self-centered or financially-challenged
consumer.
Additional benefits of using the library, beyond that it’s “green,” are obvious. Now it’s time to start mashing up our marketing tactics to include benefits that take our offerings beyond the eco-friendly angle.
11. Owner-less
According to Trendwatching, access is more important than ownership in 2011. This one is a natural opportunity for libraries. Most of the materials libraries lend and services they offer are far too expensive for most consumers to afford. From books and DVDs to databases, videogame platforms, and even ad hoc office or meeting spaces, libraries can offer serious benefits in an ownerless society.
Trendwatching says:
For many consumers, access is better than ownership. Indeed,
over the past few years, there have been few industries that
haven’t got the ‘Netflix treatment’, from textbooks to jewelry to
educational video games to calculators.
As consumers open up to opportunities to rent, borrow, and share, the library will see an ever-growing population more interested in what it offers.
from: American Libraries
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