Social Media

Social media is obviously a powerful platform.  But it is only as powerful as a marketers ability to use it, and most brands fall woefully short of capturing the medium’s potential. With any trend or fad - whether or not social media is one, the other or neither will be addressed below – people clamor to be a part of it.  As they do, they usually make either one of two mistakes:  1) they assume it’s the right choice for them, or 2) they assume they don’t have to be an expert at it to benefit from it.  For the average person looking for additional sources of continuous entertainment or recognition, neither of these mistakes is too egregious.  They’re annoying, but no one suffers. But when the weight and dollars of corporate marketing departments are involved, the mistakes are far less forgiving.  Where brands mostly go wrong is what can aptly be termed “obsessing over the conversation.” 

Many brands’ desires to execute effective social media campaigns come from an obsessive need to “be part of the conversation” or to “talk directly to the consumer.” This often leads companies to interject themselves into conversations, despite whether or not it’s appropriate.  Gatorade’s “Mission Control” concept is a prime example.  The problem for brands taking this approach to social media is that they are trying to forcefully interject themselves into what is intended to be honest and sincere conversation.  The honesty and trust of social media is what makes it so impactful.  But the honesty exist because it’s a conversation between two people who have some degree of report or inherent trust amongst them, even if it’s just based on one or the other’s status as an expert, even if its by way of being the first person to disseminate the information.  For Gatorade to have a “Mission Control” center for social media misses the point.  Consumers don’t want brands to be part of their social circles.  They want other people to be part of their social circles. No one wants to have “conversations” with brands.  Plenty of people want to complain about brands, but complaining and conversing are very different things.  More importantly, people don’t believe brands want to converse with them – they believe they want to sell something to them.  Its capitalism, and its great, but its also pretty black and white.  People want to have conversations with other people. No matter how badly marketers want to view the products on whose behalves they advocate for as living breathing entities, brands aren’t people. Most people certainly don’t view them as such.

Social media can be an incredibly personal medium, and few brands have a strong enough sense of themselves to be able to engage consumers as if they were a real person.  When its done right, it can be an impactful thing; honest and consistent dialogue.  But consistency in voice and message for a brand on social media is very difficult.  Unless one person is in charge of all online conversation for a brand or company, consistency is nearly impossible.  Which makes establishing a believable and honest personality on behalf of the brand a false premise.  Here again, brands aren’t people.  Sure, the people speaking on a brand’s behalf are people, but the odds of hiring enough employees that share the personality of your brand is slim.   Just as its tough to fake personality in real life, it’s tough for a single personal to sincerely embody the essence of a brand, let alone for a few dozen to do so. So the whole premise of “having a conversation” with your consumer is inherently flawed, at least from the perspective of a brand doing it.   Nobody wants to talk to a sports drink, because a sports drink is not a real person.  They certainly don’t want to be interrupted by a sports drink while they are talking about it. It’s intrusive and seems insincere and off putting, even to the point of dishonesty.

A lot of companies view their social media platforms as opportunities for problem solving.  This is a much more useful space for a brand to inhabit.  A brand’s ability to monitor complaints and solve issues before they become too public is the saving grace of social media platforms.  But brands do not have to have conversations with customers to uncover problem; they need only observe and most importantly listen.  It’s a far safer place for companies to sit.  Let others have conversations, and from those conversations, uncover problems to be solved, and then solve them quickly, quietly, and without all the fuss of “dialogue with the consumer.” 

The real power for brands in social media is when content goes viral; when consumers personally connect with a brand, independently pick up its message, and transmit it through their personal ecosystems.  What makes this format so powerful is that its honest, sincere, and the greatest form of brand flattery.  When playing the viral game, the assumption is often made, and incorrectly so, that you have to go out of your way to create content viral in nature.  You don’t.  More often then not, all a brand needs to do is stick to its traditional media and advertising plans, as the average viral brand video is nothing more than the traditional 30 second television spot – in terms of concept and production at least.  Where brands do need to take extra steps in preparation is by remaining flexible enough to respond appropriately if their content does go viral. It does a brand no good to have content go viral, create an ecosystem of demand for more interaction, and then have no resources left to meet it.  But here too, brands must be careful to not try to hard to create viral content.  As with many things in life, trying to hard can backfire in a bad way, and this is certainly the case when brands purposefully set out to create viral content.  A recent article in Quartz titled “You didn’t Make the Harlem Shake Go Viral, Corporations Did,” details just how manipulative the viral game can be played.  The more brands decide to go down the road of paying people to push their content in what seems like an honest form of viral dissemination, the sooner the viral landscape becomes as insincere as “dialogue” or “conversation.”

So is social media a trend, a fad, or something that is here to stay?    I’d argue that it’s really neither, but is instead just a new format for brands to leverage.  It’s new sure, but so was the television and radio at some point. The underlying marketing principles it takes for a brand to succeed in those mediums do not change just because of social media.  The best campaigns are still the simplest.  To the extent that companies need social media plans, they don’t have to do anything different than they do across all other mediums. When they try to do things differently in some ill-conceived notion of honest dialogue is when they find trouble.