I love Apple computers. I bought my first one in 2005, and I’ve never looked back.
But despite my feelings towards their products, sometimes they peeve me a bit.
My new MacBook Pro arrived yesterday. And the thing is a computing animal. Light, fast, thin, and easy to get around.
Except one place: The flippin’ mousepad!
The old mousepad design was excellent. There was a large pad for your fingers, and one large button right below the pad. Everything you needed to get around your laptop.
But this new design makes it a real pain. Now, there’s an even bigger pad, but no button at all. “No button?” you ask? That’s right. Because they’ve made the whole pad into a button.
Sounds neat in theory, sure. But if you’re one of those people who’s gotten good at dragging things around with your fingers while using your thumb for the button, suddenly you’ve got to make a major change. Using your thumb for the button-pushing tasks makes the cursor slide around. Just when you’ve got it where you want it, you press the pad and it moves!
This mouse button thing got me thinking about necessary and unnecessary changes. To me, this change seems unnecessary. More than that, it’s a change for the worse.
And if that doesn’t sound like the marketing decisions a lot of companies are making right now, I don’t know what does.
This is exactly the kind of thing that happens when we make decisions out of fear. The economy tanks and we panic. We think “Geez, I have to do something!” and we go running full speed into the comfort of old marketing habits.
That’s not going to help us, people.
Consumer trust has fallen through the floor. A big “buy now” campaign isn’t going to help you rebuild it.
Something that will help is establishing a social media presence. Opening yourself and your business and giving people the chance to interact with you on their own terms. That builds trust.
Social Media is just one more way that the Internet has leveled the playing field. If you know how to reach your customers with it, you’re ahead of the game