Stepping Back: Social Media + Your Brand

These days, it seems every company has (or is planning) a person or division focused on “reaching out to the community” or “being part of the conversation” through tools such as Twitter and Facebook. Countless books, experts, and even entirely new agencies have sprung up around “social media” to help companies understand – and take advantage of – this new movement towards thinking about and doing marketing (and business) differently.

Yet despite the shining successes out there, what’s discussed less often is determining if and when leveraging social media makes sense for your brand, and more importantly, what the underlying POV should be to help craft an initial approach.

Here are a few thoughts:

The term “social media” is a misnomer. “Media” is really just the internet; it’s a technology-based conduit, a channel of communication that in and of itself is not social. What is social is both the heart and challenge: enabling and getting people to talk with each other and to you about your brand. Social media is thus really about finding ways to connect with your audience through technology, in hopes of influencing how they feel or what they do as related to your brand.

Social media is a commitment, not a one-time deal. Among the first questions to consider – are you truly ready to invest and commit the resources and time? Social media is often continuous and requires an ever evolving, on-going effort in order to be most effective. You can’t just set up a Facebook or Twitter account and call it a day. It’s a relationship that must be cultivated over time.

Your brand should drive your social media approach / strategy. Who you are, what you’re about, and what you stand for – in other words, the DNA of your brand (or if you’re the new kid on the block, the desired DNA of your brand) – should drive how, why, where, and when you engage using social media.

Define what success looks like. A social media program or campaign doesn’t have much value if there isn’t a clear, meaningful (and hopefully measurable) goal. Understanding what your desired result is helps better focus limited time and resources. The recent Old Spice campaign was a great example of an initiative done well, but if the brand didn’t experience an uptick in perception that lead to increased sales (it did) it would have been difficult to qualify the effort as a success.

Social = a relationship with your audience. How familiar are you with your audience? Do you know what they care about, what motivates them, their likes / dislikes, how your brand is relevant in their lives? A good understanding of your customers enables a deeper, more dynamic relationship to be established, which in turn creates greater value for both sides.

Authenticity and transparency matters. The most successful social media efforts win not only because they align with the brand, but also because they communicate with an authentic, transparent voice that resonates with people on a personal level. Anything less and people can tell.

Social media remains one of the best and most effective ways for companies to help drive brand equity and perception. A recent number of success stories highlight this even more; while getting started with social media is quite easy, more important is knowing where you want to go with it, why, and how it reflects what your brand is about.