Social Mediation

I Know What they Did Last Summer (And about Half of it was Bad)

This summer I worked for a giant diversified manufacturing company in Minneapolis, MN. I won't say who it was, but they make Post-it Notes (R) and Scotch (R) Brand Tape Products. (And trust me, they would be thrilled that I wrote the names of said products accurately). I had a number of projects, but one of them involved social listening using Radian 6 and other tools, and this project exposed me to a lot of "corporate" social media efforts.

At any big company, it's difficult to come forth with a unified social media strategy, and I saw evidence of this first hand. Some brands within the corporate umbrella were simply much better at it than others. Same company, different brands, different social media abilities. Let's come back to this...**

First, let's ask how we know that a company is doing well or doing poorly? Yes, we should ultimately measure social media success by Revenues, Lifetime Customer Value, New Business, etc...But as casual observers, when we cannot see the sales on the other end, let's evaluate social media this way:

1. The extent to which it creates engagement (2 sided conversation) with customers
2. The extent to which it creates community (multi-sided conversation) among customers and fans
3. The extent to which customers feel empowered by the company's brand
4. The extent to which the brand position is strengthened and sharpened

If It Hurts When You Touch Everywhere, Your Finger Might be Broken

There are several problems with this list. First, I'm sure that there are a ton of other ways to evaluate success, and put metrics to those parameters. But the real problem, in my opinion, is that no matter how many we add, item four will almost always come LAST.

Here's today's F.of.I,O.of.M Blaspheme: There are no social media problems. There are only weak brands. The brands that focused on "executing" social media strategy missed most often. They seemed desperate to create conversation. They had no "voice" when they communicated. They could have been any company or anyone, posting about things.

The most successful brands had a clear hierarchy of brand identity. It's one that I have adapted and have used for my start-up and other projects this year:

1. Purpose: What is the company or brand Mission?
2. Values: What does the brand believe in?
3. Tone: How do we speak to and within our community?
4. Personality: What traits do we emit? How do we want others to describe us?
5. Attributes: What things or feelings do we want to be associated with?

Here's what this looks like for my company:

Again, I think when many social media executers think of brands, I believe they start to far towards the bottom. I would postulate, (and would think that this would make a great paper for someone else) that companies with the longest standing, best articulated, best embodied brand or company purpose also have the most successful social media strategies. Or at least, I would argue that they have the best opportunity to execute on them.

I think of brands in the same way I think of characters in a movie. We as social media executers are taking on a persona, weather that persona is based on someone real, an amalgamation of someones, or simply imagined. In any movie, it does not matter what the actor does if the character is not believable. Save for certain fringe categories, the best script in the world cannot survive bad acting. I think the same is true in social media.

Small (incomplete) list of why I think brand fidelity is THE most important thing in social media execution:

1. People hate phonies. And fans can smell phonies a mile away. Social media thrives on transparency. If you lie, you will die. Simple.

2. If the idea is for you to create self-sustaining communities, your brand has to be so crystal clear, that your supporters, followers, and users are able to accurately MIMIC your brand's every move. This means that there are 1000 little brand actors running around - awesome.

This is extremely hard to do, and here's an example of how hard it can be. Over the summer, Target, quite abruptly, got involved with the same sex marriage conversation - truly a positive and courageous move in my opinion, but a surprise to many in the media, and within their own community.

Even the ad copy acknowledges a departure here: Target, a company whose brand was always articulated through independence, creativity, and simplicity, is now involved in something pretty serious and far-reaching.

Unfortunately, Target's audience had not rehearsed this shift in brand character, and their Facebook page exploded with shouts, threats, and negativity from both sides - from all sides. Nobody was happy. It was largely a disaster, and got so bad that the Target administrators had to simply give up and just let things run their course. (Sorry, couldn't find a screenshot.)

The good news is that I believe Target has excellent brand management, overall. If their goal is to be more receptive, more egalitarian and more communal, I believe their supporters will catch on, and start to behave in those ways. Those who aren't down with it will defect, and that's a blessing (see #5)

3. Brand conservatism makes decisions MUCH easier for line level social media executers. I want to say that I first uncovered this principle via Southwest Airlines in Good to Great. I believe the example went something like this...

Kelleher: We aim to be the low cost provider with frequent service and no frills to customers who drive most of the time instead of flying.
Employee: Should we serve salad on the flight from Austin to Dallas
Kelleher: Does that adhere to our brand strategy?
Employee: Oh, right. Sorry, Herb.

Companies, just like customers, have brand recall. The challenge for companies and employees in social media is that everything happens in real-time. The better the brand, the faster the recall, and the swifter the response. Google's recently launched, and social media supported "Person Finder" is a great example of this. Google = Search = Getting Information that You Need Really Bad Really Fast. Yes, this is a noble effort, but it's way more than just a heroic gesture towards the Boston Marathon community. This is Google's brand just nailing a one-act soliloquy.

4. Being true to your (already established) brand means you don't have to apologize to anyone for being who you are. Sorry world, social media DOES NOT mean that everyone gets their way by complaining on Facebook. I still don't get my salad, and from the brand's perspective, that's totally OK.

Here's a fantastic example: I had a serious of awesome controversial conversation regarding the following social campaign by Nike...

Wow. So Nike, are you saying that I can cheat on my wife, destroy my family, put my career into a tailspin, and act like a total douche-bag...but.... if I start winning again...that...that takes care of everything? This echoes much of the social zeitgeist reaction, and it's understandable why.

This is a totally inappropriate campaign for everyone except for Nike. This is a totally deliberate brand statement. It's controversial  but it is calculated and merciless. Winning, and helping their customers win through competition is at the very top of their brand pyramid. Despite the fact that I feel this ad campaign is in very poor taste, I get the feeling that it will only serve, in the long run, to sharpen Nike's brand message and empower Nike fans and customers to compete and win.

**Finally, getting back to my beloved diversified manufacturer. The reason I think they have so much trouble with a unified social media execution is because they had no unified brand articulation. (I actually don't think they would argue this at all - in fact, it's a very central company objective at the very top.) How can you take Post-it Notes, industrial-grade break linings, and electrical caps, and come up with a character that speaks to the dozens of different types of customers for these products? That's a serious challenge. To meet it, they will have to start with the corporate brand at the very top, and work their way down.