When your product lives inside a screen, how do you make people feel connected to it?
It’s something I’ve been thinking about after attending events hosted by social media and marketing technology brands. We spend so much of our working lives inside these platforms, using them to plan content, understand audiences, manage campaigns and report on results. But using a tool every day doesn’t necessarily mean feeling attached to the brand behind it.
Sometimes it’s simply the dashboard your company has told you to use.
For SaaS brands, that creates an interesting challenge. There’s no physical product for customers to pick up or try on. The value comes through what the software helps them do, and that can take time, confidence and support to fully understand.
Getting people together can make that value feel much more tangible. Recently, I’ve seen Sprout Social, Kolsquare and Onclusive approach this in different ways. Each gave people an opportunity to step away from their screens, learn something and talk to others who understood their working lives.
What interested me was how the experience connected back to the product.
Helping customers get more from what they already have
Sprout Social recently brought customers together for a workshop focused on strategy, social listening and collaboration.
People had the opportunity to think about the conversations they should be listening to online, how those insights could inform better content, and how to work more effectively across teams.
That’s useful because having access to a platform and knowing how to apply it to your own challenges are two different things. You can understand where the buttons are and still need help deciding which questions to ask.
A workshop gives customers the space to do that thinking. They can discuss their approach, hear how other people work and consider possibilities they might not have explored while getting through their usual to-do list.
There’s an obvious potential benefit for Sprout here too. Helping customers get more value from a product gives them more reason to keep using it. I’d see this kind of experience as an investment in the customer relationship, with retention a possible outcome.
The important part is that the customer gets something useful from being there.
Starting with the problems around the table
At a Kolsquare event we attended, the approach felt more focused on opening up conversations with potential customers.
People sat around tables, discussed their pain points and explored how they might solve them. That gave the conversation a practical starting point: what are you finding difficult, and what would help?
I liked that format because it gave people room to speak. They could hear how others were approaching similar challenges, compare experiences and contribute their own ideas.
It also created a natural opportunity for Kolsquare to explain where its platform could help. Once someone has described a problem in their own words, a relevant product conversation has much more context.
For the brand, those discussions are also an opportunity to listen. The questions people ask, the frustrations they share and the language they use can tell you a great deal about what matters to them.
An event like this can support new business while still being a worthwhile use of someone’s time before they become a customer.
Giving people a sense of belonging
Onclusive has also hosted events in lovely settings, bringing people together with expert panels and opportunities to talk to others in their industry.
The setting contributes to the experience. It shows care and gives people a reason to step out of their normal routine. But the conversations and learning are what give the day substance.
There’s something valuable about sitting with people who understand the challenges you’re describing. You don’t have to explain every detail of your role before someone recognises the problem.
You can ask questions, hear another perspective and realise that other teams are working through similar things.
For a software brand, facilitating those connections gives the relationship another dimension. Customers get to know the people behind the business and meet a wider group of professionals around it. The brand becomes associated with an experience, a useful conversation or something they learned.
That’s much harder to communicate through a dashboard alone.
Make the experience worth leaving the desk for
These events had different formats and, from my perspective, different commercial purposes. But the common thread was participation.
People had something to contribute. They could bring a question, discuss a challenge or work through an idea with others.
That would be my starting point for any social media technology brand planning a customer experience: what will people get to do, and what will they leave with?
It might be a clearer strategy, a better understanding of how to use the platform, a new contact or greater confidence in their approach. Whatever it is, it needs to justify the time they’ve taken away from work.
A beautiful venue helps. So does good hospitality. The content and conversations need just as much attention.
It’s also worth thinking about what happens afterwards. If someone has spent time working through a problem at your event, following up with relevant support gives that experience continuity. It helps them put what they learned into practice when they’re back at their desk.
Social media marketing tools still have to do their jobs well. An enjoyable afternoon won’t compensate for a product that doesn’t meet someone’s needs.
But a useful, thoughtful experience can help people understand the product’s value and feel more connected to the people behind it.
When your software lives inside a screen, bringing customers into a room can give them something they carry back to work: ideas, relationships and a sense that someone understands what they’re trying to achieve.