Chisholm and Harper | Creating businesses of the future

Consider this: for people aged 13-30, the Internet is a highly interactive environment; so-called web 2.0 is either old hat or all they’ve ever known.

They know the Internet as a place to not only find information or go shopping, but primarily as a means of communicating with their physical social network, or with the online community more broadly.  They expect websites to cater to their every need; if not they’ll look elsewhere and only come back if something isn’t doing what you do better.  They will not buy, either online or in-store, if there aren’t peer reviews on products and services.  If your company doesn’t have an online presence, you’re probably entirely off their radar.   If they search for you but can’t find you, you’re out of their consideration set, and no amount of marketing spend can fix this because they don’t trust what you say about yourself.  Its not just 13-30 year olds who think like this – there are plenty of other Internet savvy people out there who don’t fit in this age bracket who have the same expectations.

The Internet is now a democratised environment full of everyone’s opinions, including opinions about your organisation, your products and your industry.  On a fundamental level, the biggest change the Internet has brought about is that you can’t get away with anything.  It challenges you to take your business to the next level if you want people to sing your praises online.