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4 Myths of Social Media Authenticity

April 29, 2013 by gfsnell3 9 Comments

Happyroom2

One of the great big whopping lies about social media is authenticity.

Because – let’s face it – there isn’t much that’s authentic about social media. There’s lots of spin, cherry-picking, and bright-side propaganda from both individuals and brands going on. Few people and brands are truly genuine about their attitudes, personalities and opinions on social channels.

Why?

Because few people are authentic when they are being watched. When you are being scrutinized you put your best face forward. It’s only natural. And for brands social channels are for marketing and communications. In other words, “planned” content. Planned content, by its nature, is not authentic.

So let us count and debunk some of the most popular myths about social media authenticity:

Myth #1: Consumers demand that brands be authentic on social media

Reality: Consumers want brands to fit within their perception of what the brand stands for. What people really mean by saying they want brands to be “authentic” is that they want brands to be on message. To reflect their brand. If the brand strays outside of the boundaries of that perception – they are routinely punished for it.

Take last year, for example, when the American Rifleman magazine published a tweet that read in part “Good morning, shooters” right after the Aurora, Colorado mass shooting.  American Rifleman - which is a magazine for, well, shooters – was savaged for it. Its tweet, while badly timed, was most definitely authentic. In the storm that followed the publication deleted not only the tweet, but also its entire Twitter account. Why?  It’s too risky being authentic when it means supporting guns and bullets.

A second example is Chik-Fil-A. It is a brand that is authentically conservative Christian. That philosophy is built into the brands DNA (the restaurants are closed on Sundays as a result). Chick-Fil-A found itself out of the frying pan and into the fire last year for speaking out against gay marriage. It’s a stance that’s about as authentic as you get, but no one was celebrating that fact.  Chick-Fil-A’s opinions led to boycotts and people demanding that Chik-Fil-A keep its authentic opinions to itself.

Myth #2: People are authentic on social media

Reality: People lie like crazy on social media.  And if they aren’t outright lying they are certainly painting their lives in the most wonderful light. Facebook has turned us all into our own private publicists. That’s why restaurant and vacation photographs are so popular – look at me doing awesome things!  Few people write about the daily drudgery of their lives or the challenges of being married or a parent. A recent survey about women and dishonesty on social networks was very revealing.

Here’s what the Telegraph noted in its story on the survey:

“According to the OnePoll survey, one-third of women surveyed admitted to “dishonesty” on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter at some stage.  Almost one in four admitted to lying or exaggerating about key aspects of their life online between one and three times a month while almost one in 10 said they lied more than once a week.”

I think it is safe to say men would likely rank about the same. Don’t we all what our lives to appear more glamorous or important to our friends, family and colleagues?

Myth #3: Brand authenticity is appreciated and rewarded on social media

Reality: Not even close. Do you want to know what is really authentic? Mistakes. We all make them. But if you’re a brand and you make a mistake on social media? Then you get a kick to the head for it – even if you retract it and apologize.

Look what happened when American Apparel tweeted out information about a sale they were having just before a big storm – just in case people got “bored” riding it out.  The storm, unfortunately, was Hurricane Sandy. Hundreds, if not thousands of people turned on American Apparel on social channels to rip them about their tweet – even though it was written before the storm struck.

Or how about Kenneth Cole’s tweet linking the riots in Cairo with a sale of his shoes? He was hammered for this error in judgement even after apologizing for it.

Myth #4: Authenticity humanizes brands and that behavior is rewarded

Reality: Human beings don’t run the social media channels at brands. Groups of people do. And those groups are usually PR and marketing experts and all they are trying to do is sell things: messages, brand identity and products and services. Brands are a lot of things, but human isn’t one of them.

But that doesn’t stop “human emotions” from occasionally making its way onto brand social channels. And when that happens? Trouble. Nestle is a perfect example of this. When its Facebook page was attacked by Greenpeace activists angry about the brand’s use of palm oil and its connection to destroying rain forests, the flustered community manager at Nestle reacted in a most human way: he become frustrated.

And when he vented this frustration through a few snarky remarks about the rudeness of the activists, he was, of course, roundly and loudly denounced and criticized for reacting like, well, a human being.

———-

What do you think about authenticity on social media? Another buzzword? Or do you think it is what makes social media social? Would love to hear from you in the comments.

Links:

Why Women Constantly Lie About Life on Facebook via The Telegraph

A Single Tweet Can Cause A lot of Damage

There is No Authenticity Online

Business, Content Creation, Culture, Social Media
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What Technology in the Classroom Should Mean

April 24, 2013 by gfsnell3 1 Comment

ipadmaster

Public schools are adding tablets and laptop computers into their educational programs in record numbers.  One of the main reasons educators cite for this proliferation of technology is a variation of this thinking:

“The jobs of the future will be using technology and computers and students need to learn them to be prepared for the workplace.”

One educator had his sixth grade students create ad campaigns for cars they designed using apps on an iPad.  He told the Guardian about how the process worked in his classroom:

“Allowing the children to work in this manner shifted the learning from teacher-centred to child-centred. Children could work at their own pace without having to wait for further instructions from the teacher.”

Sounds great for the teacher.  But this is the wrong approach to integrating technology in the classroom.

As anyone with a three-year-old will tell you mastering an iPad, iPhone or iPod takes about three minutes – tops.  Apps – for the most part – are simple to use requiring an ability to peck, point and swipe your fingers.  And while you can create amazing things with apps, most of the work is done by the technology – not by the person.

This isn’t learning – or creating.

Technology in the classroom should not mean mastering hardware or current software – because by the time these students are ready for the job marketing the hardware and software they learned on is already obsolete.

What iPads and laptop computers add to the classroom is distraction.  Say what you will about a hard-covered textbook, but when you open it to read that’s all you can do – read it.  When you try to read or focus on an iPad or a computer there are literally dozens, if not hundreds of distractions: email, Twitter, Facebook, Google Searches, Wikipedia, Instagram, YouTube, iTunes, games (thousands of games!) and the internet.

There are bells, beeps, whistles and flashing icons on your screen – all demanding attention.  iPads are perfectly manufactured interruption devices.  Distractions everywhere that aren’t available with a piece of paper, a book or a chalkboard.

What technology in the classroom should mean is learning how to code.  Learning how technology works – both software and hardware.  It should mean math, problem solving and creating things from scratch – not learning how to use apps.  Teach kids to write software.  Teach them how technology works – the concepts and ideas behind using it solve problems.

That’s what technology in the classroom should mean.  We need to be teaching children to be thinkers.  They need to learn reading, writing, mathematics and science.  They need to learn how to solve problems and create things.

Learning how to use an iPad?  Or an app?

Really?

Links:

iPads in the Classroom via The Guardian

More High Schools Implement iPad Programs via U.S. News & World Report 

Culture, Technology
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Boston, Social Media & the Press

April 22, 2013 by gfsnell3 1 Comment

Media

During the horrific week of the Boston Marathon bombings – where the news seem to fly faster than even Twitter – one thing stuck out like a sore thumb:

The mainstream media remains the best place to get accurate news.

Despite all the cuts, all the closings and the sorry economic state of the mainstream media it continues to be more reliable and professional than online upstarts and citizen journalists.  Organizations like WBUR, NPR, the New York Times and The Atlantic deserve to be called out for responsible and informative reporting of the Boston bombings and subsequent manhunt for the suspects.

That’s not to say the damage done to the mainstream media the last few years – and certainly the ugly spectacle of watching news organizations desperately trying to compete with social media channels – didn’t lead to a lot of preventable and unfortunate mistakes.

There were some awful reporting decisions made by CNN, the Associated Press and the Boston Globe, especially when all three reported that an arrest had been made the day after the explosions and then later rather inelegantly retracting them.

But even the worst of the mainstream media didn’t come close to the display by many bloggers and citizen journalists on social channels.  Facebook and Twitter became clogged with unsubstantiated rumors, blatant misinformation, conspiracy theories, outright lies and most disturbingly displays of unfocused rage calling for death, destruction and blood (isn’t that what we’re supposed to be fighting against?).

At times my Facebook feed read like a parallel universe where people jumped to all kinds of strange conclusions about the bombing – based on nothing but emotion and rumors.

Most of the mainstream media showed the restraint and caution necessary to cover a story like Boston.  That professional judgement was not adhered to by many bloggers, upstarts (BuzzFeed and Gawker, for example) and citizen reporters.  It was the first time I ever turned off my Facebook and Twitter feeds to focus exclusively on mainstream media outlets.

What about you?  Did you find social media added value during the coverage of the Boston bombings?  What sources did you turn to?

* Disclosure: I’ve done social media consulting work for WBUR.

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You’re Not Married to Your Social Networks – You’re Just Dating

April 12, 2013 by gfsnell3 4 Comments

Teens

Because if history is any guide – social networks come and go.  Mostly go.

So don’t go off and get hitched.

As my astute colleague Greg Swan recently noted:

“You would think the track record of social network migration (i.e. users emigrating from Compuserve to AOL, AOL to Friendster, Friendster to MySpace, more recently MySpace to Facebook) would have established a trend of cyclical change which we marketers would anticipate and embrace. But for some reason it seems like our clients and peers are always surprised when online behavior changes, new destinations gain traction, and popular networks lose daily active users.”

What prompted his musings?

New research that teenagers are rejecting platforms like Facebook and Twitter in favor of newer and cooler social networks.  In other words,  social networks that their parents have yet to discover.

A new survey by Piper Jaffrey asked 5,000 teens to list their most important social networks.  The top five were:

  • Wangle
  • Vine
  • SnapChat
  • Kik
  • 4Chan

As you can see – not a Facebook post or an Instagram photo in the lot.

As Buzzfeed observed about the survey:

“It hints at what could be the beginning of an across-the-board teen rejection of traditional social networking as a whole.”

That’s because the services listed above, most notably SnapChat and Kik, are not even social networks in the way we think about them now.  In fact, they are really just instant messaging services – but with more functionality (primarily imagery like photos and video) and personality.

There’s no big profiles on these services – so they are more private.  There’s also the ability to be more selective in who you interact with.  Less fear about mom, dad, grandma and Uncle Bert reading your posts and commenting on your photos and likes and dislikes.

In other words, paradise – at least if you’re a teenager.

But anyone who has been working in digital and social communications for longer than a turnip truck ride will be able to tell you that platforms (i.e. specific social networks) really aren’t that important.  Does it really matter if you need to shift platforms from MySpace to Facebook or perhaps later to Vine?  Not really.

If you’re a brand and have a content strategy, understand your audience, and are developing multimedia and interactive content – that’s really all you need.  You should be adding and subtracting channels all the time – or at least when they change.  And change they will.

It’s one reason why having an online content hub – a home base if you will – is a crucial part of any digital and social strategy.  That’s where your content can live and breathe (and provide amazing SEO).  Social channels are just that channels.  It’s where you broadcast your content and engage with your audiences.

If you find your audiences have moved – move with them.

That said there’s no panic yet.  Facebook still has a billion people on it.  Twitter is still growing like crazy.

But change is always in the air…

How about you?  Any thoughts on these new networks or on the old ones?

Links:

Greg Swan’s post on Teens Ditching Facebook

Buzzfeed post on Teens Abandoning Social Networks

Business, Content Creation, Content Marketing, Social Media
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Let’s Count the Ways You’re Screwing Up Social Media

April 9, 2013 by gfsnell3 3 Comments

Screw

Because the ways are many and varied.

If you needed any evidence that brands are doing social media all wrong then look no further than a recent survey sponsored by Ragan’s PR Daily and several partners.

The statistics are jaw-dropping:

  • Only 27 percent of brands have a dedicated social media team
  • Sixty-five percent of brands have delegated social media responsibilities to existing staff
  • Forty-two percent have one person – one! – dedicated to social media
  • Forty-seven percent of brands have hired a person with 1-3 years of experience to handle their social media

So is it any wonder that only 5 percent of brands are “highly satisfied” with their social media programs?  Of course not.  Basically most brands have hired a recent college graduate to be the point person for all of their social media programs.

Would you do that for marketing?  Or communications?  Heck would you do that for any other department?

The answer is, of course, no.

Brands need senior leadership for social media – which is quickly morphing into the primary channels for content marketing.  Social, digital and content need strategy.  They need ideas, direction, organization and structure.  There is no way junior person can accomplish all of that – they simply aren’t qualified to do so.

I would argue that social media will soon be driving advertising, marketing and communications.  That’s where the industry is moving rapidly.  Smart companies are creating teams to do this.  They are hiring senior leadership, platform experts, community managers and content creators to build strong internal teams that can be augmented by smart partnerships with outside consultants.

Are you a company investing in social and digital communications?  Or are you a company doing social and digital communications by strategically hiring interns to do it for you?

The choice is yours.

Links:

An Inside Look at Companies Social Media Teams via Raglan

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Should We Block Big Brother Tactics by Companies?

April 4, 2013 by gfsnell3 8 Comments

cow

Gmail reads my emails.

… so they can serve me targeted ads.

Amazon analyzes my book buying habits.

…to serve me up ads via recommendations.

Facebook studies my posting habits and likes.

…to sell my profile to advertisers so they can target me with ads.

Google collects and analyzes my search habits.

…to serve me up contextual ads.

The New York Times tracks all the stories I read.

…so they can recommend to me other stories to read.

Nearly every website I visit mines me for valuable data.

…so they can sell it so companies can serve me up ads.

Some days you feel like a dairy cow and you’re tired of being milked.  It gets aggravating to poked, prodded, pushed, pulled, and plucked day-in-and-day out.  Some days you’ve had enough.

This is one of those days.

Our personal data (i.e. our privacy) has become the new frontier of marketing.  Our preferences, buying habits, online patterns and circle of friends and influencers is the new gold mine.  And we gladly give it up for convenience.

So here’s a question:

Should companies be allowed to collect your personal data when you visit their websites?  Or should they be required to specifically ask permission to mine this data?

And I’m not talking about asking permission in the form of pages long terms of service agreements that no one reads.  I’m talking about a pop-up that open as soon you arrive allowing you to either opt in or opt out of having your personal data collected.

And one follow-up question.

Should companies be forced to be completely transparent about what data they do have and have to share it with you if you ask for it?

Thoughts?

Links:

Why You Hate Privacy

Invasion of the Privacy Snatchers

Business, Culture, Social Media
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What the Heck is Content Marketing?

April 2, 2013 by gfsnell3 5 Comments

AdverstingBelieve

Content marketing is when a brand creates content and shares it.

It’s different from “regular” content (whatever that is) because its goal is to attract and engage consumers.

Content marketing has been around since the beginning of PR and advertising.  It used to come in the form of company newsletters, advertorials, user conferences, company magazines and press releases.

But social and digital media have shifted content marketing into hyperdrive.  Content market now comes in many flavors:

  • An author who shares a sample chapter of his new book for free on his blog is engaged in content marketing.  He’s hoping to attract new readers and hook them on his book.  The next step, he hopes, is for people to read his chapter and buy his book.
  • A food brand that shares recipes and cooking tips on its Facebook page is practicing content marketing.  They are hoping their knowledge about food and the tips they share will lure customers to buy its products.
  • A technology company that offers insights and tips on how to use their software through a series of YouTube videos is in the content marketing business.  They are helping consumers optimize the use of their product and at the same time hoping to attract new customers through their approach.

Content marketing is all the rage right now and for a good reason.  It works.

Traditional advertising has reached the end of its effectiveness.  People don’t believe advertising anymore.

‘Today’s generation has always had TV and is much more media savvy. Research shows that younger people are more likely to believe a stranger in an internet chat room than a TV advertisement,” Rosin Donnelly, marketing director at Procter & Gamble, recently told The Guardian.

HubSpot, a marketing software company, recently published an infographic where 76 percent of the respondents thought advertising is exaggerated.  I’m actually surprised it was that low.

So what do people believe?

They believe in Yelp reviews.  They believe recommendations from their friends and family on Twitter and Facebook.  They believe blog posts.  They still believe news articles and features.  They believe in Internet searches.  They believe in real and authentic content.

Content marketing bolsters all of that.

It provides people with useful, entertaining, and informative content.  And because of digital and social media it releases that content from the confines of old closed platforms: like company magazines and newsletters.  It allows that content to be optimized for search and to proliferate on social networks like YouTube and Pinterest.  It allows people to share it and comment on it.

And best of all – done right – it works.

Links:

Young People No Longer Believe in TV Ads via The Guardian

76% of People Think Advertising is Exaggerated via HubSpot

Content Creation, Content Marketing, Social Media
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Google Declares Itself Grand Protector of Journalism

April 1, 2013 by gfsnell3 3 Comments

GoogleSword

Likely news organizations don’t know whether to scream or to laugh.

Google – one of the biggest culprits in the downfall of newspapers and magazines – preaching to them about “journalistic values.”

This from a company, mind you, that spends not one single penny on journalism.  A company that aggregates the journalism from hundreds of news organizations – from the New York Times to TechCrunch – on Google News and sells its own advertising around it.

And now Google wants to discuss “credibility and trust” in journalism.

It’s like a thief who breaks into your house, steals your flat-screen TV, and then lectures you about needing better locks.

What has got Google declaring itself the Grand Protector of Journalism?

The rise of Native Advertising – a.k.a. Sponsored Content or Brand Content.  News organizations, struggling for survival as paid readership flees in droves and advertising dollars whisk to Google, Facebook and other digital platforms, has been experimenting with new ways to monetize.

One of those ways is Native Advertising.  News organization are working with advertisers to jointly create content for readers – that both the news organization and advertiser believe has value for readers.  There are different models in place, but it can include journalists writing articles on behalf of advertisers, advertisers providing content to the news organizations or advertisers actually creating the content and it being distributed by news organizations.

All of this, of course, going through the filters of the individual news organizations leadership.

No doubt Sponsored Content is laden with obstacles. News organization have to be careful to distinguish between the two.  They have to open, honest, and transparent with their readership.

But that’s the job of the individual news organizations – not Google.

Yet last week the Google News blog published a post called “A reminder about promotional and commerce journalism” by Richard Gingras, senior director of News & Social Products.

The post said, in part:

“Credibility and trust are longstanding journalistic values, and ones which we all regard as crucial attributes of a great news site. It’s difficult to be trusted when one is being paid by the subject of an article, or selling monetized links within an article. Google News is not a marketing service, and we consider article that employ these types of promotional tactics to be in violation of our quality guidelines.”

Please.

Basically, Google – who does not practice journalism – is defining for news organizations what journalism is and how to practice it.  Never mind that without creative new ways to generate revenue many news organizations will go out of business.

Here’s a better idea.

If Google wants to “protect” journalism it should share its advertising revenues from Google News and Search with news organizations.  Every time a click goes to a newspaper, news magazine, or news outlet a percentage of the money that Google earns from that click should be paid to the creators of the journalism.

Less lectures, Google, more action.

Links:

Google News Blog entry on Protecting Journalism

Marketing is the New Journalism

3 Ways to Save Journalism from Extinction

Journalism, Newspapers, Technology
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Marketing is the New Journalism

March 28, 2013 by gfsnell3 5 Comments

PlanetJournalism

And journalism is the new marketing.

For better or worse, we are moving rapidly into a state of brand-produced journalism.  It’s happening on two fronts: Sponsored Content and Brand Publishing

Sponsored Content

There’s no doubt traditional media companies are dropping like flies.  Circulations and subscriptions have flat-lined – print advertising revenue is moving to digital advertising and into the coffers of Google, Facebook and other technology companies.  For the first time, journalism jobs have sunk below 40,000 in the United States.

In other words, the industry is desperate.  As Pew Research noted in its State of the New Media 2013 report:

“Newsmakers and others with information they want to put into the public arena have become more adept at using digital technology and social media to do so on their own, without any filter by the traditional media.  They are also seeing more success in getting their message into the traditional media narrative.”

This is one reason why news organizations are moving fast to Sponsored Content.  Sponsored Content used to come in basically one format – the advertorial.  A piece of content designed to look like a news story, but written by marketers and clearly labelled for all to see with the that dreaded “Advertorial” moniker.  It might as well have said “Do Not Read.”

That’s no longer the case.  Now this “advertorial content” is being written and produced by journalists.  For example, Fortune recently announced plans where its journalists will actually write news article on behalf of advertisers.  Fortune gives the new product offering the rather Orwellian name of “Trusted Original Content.”

Traditional media is also moving quickly to provide Native Advertising for brands.  Native Advertising comes in many formats, but basically the brand creates the content – usually centered on news, trends or thought leadership – and pays to have them featured by traditional media outlets.  Often the native advertising is difficult to distinguish from the articles and news being produced by the media outlet’s journalists.

The most infamous example of Native Advertising gone wrong was at The Altantic, when the august publication published a glowing story (i.e. Native Advertising) about the Church of Scientology (which many people consider a dangerous cult).  As PaidContent noted in its coverage of the story, many entertainment and humor news sites use Native Advertising all the time – but the mix with journalism and hard news seemed to cross the line for many critics of the practice.

But that line has been broken – and will continue to be broken – because Native Advertising is a way for struggling news organizations to make money.

Brand Publishing

But an even larger trend may be the rise of Brand Journalism (aka Brand Publishing).  Why bother paying for Sponsored Content when brands can hire their own journalists to write articles for them?

Last week, two prominent journalists, Dan Lyons of ReadWrite and Ben Worthen of the Wall Street Journal, left their journalism posts to work for brands – one at a software company and the other at a venture capital firm. They were hired to be to content marketers.  They join a growing collection of journalists from the New York Times, Huffington Post and Newsweek that are joining companies to produce content – paid content for marketing purposes.

As Mashable noted:

“Call it what you want — content marketing, native advertising, brand publishing – but the idea that advertisers can create editorial content has gained an amazing amount of momentum over the past two years… Brands and others are cranking out full-on editorial publications.”

One organization, Contently, is centered on providing journalists and writers with a platform to work with brands and non-profits to create content.

Brands are starting news rooms.  Brands are building out publishing platforms.  After all who knows more about food than food companies?  Who know more about their technology than technology companies?

Weber Shandwick (the company where I work) yesterday announced Mediaco, a new brand publishing unit.  Mediaco is all about helping brands excel at content marketing – of turning traditional PR, communications and marketing efforts into brand publishing engines.

Brands as journalists.  Journalists as brands.

What do you think of Brand Publishing and the direction of both marketing and journalism?

Links:

Can Content Marketing Save Journalism via Mashable

Fortune will Created “Trusted” Content for Brands via MediaBistro

The Atlantic and Native Advertising via PaidContent

Contently’s website

Weber Shandwick Sets up New Unit to Capitalize on Content Marketing Craze via AdAge

Content Creation, Journalism, Marketing, Public Relations
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Fear of Storytelling & Other Tales of Brand Failure

March 27, 2013 by gfsnell3 2 Comments

OnceUpon

The Internet is killing Advertising.  Or at least what we would consider traditional advertising.

Fewer people believe the claims.  More people tune it out.  Or just avoid it all together (fast forward anyone?).

The Internet has ushered in an era of transparency, openness and instant access to information. There’s no place to hide. So claiming to be an environmentally conscious company while getting caught polluting ground water – blows your “advertising messages” into a million pieces.  Most people – particularly the growing segment of digital natives – don’t believe advertising anymore – because they can see right through it.

That’s why brands that are authentic, open and honest win in this new environment.  Companies like Zappos, Life is good*, Tom’s of Maine and Starbucks are admired and rise to the top while companies that continue to conduct business under the old rules run into problems.

In this new age the ability to create interactive and authentic stories is the new currency.

Yet most brands still don’t get it right.

Here’s five reasons why:

1. Fear of Storytelling

Stories are complex.  They are emotional.  They can be non-linear.  They are also conversational.  Most brands have a difficult time with all of this – especially the conversation part.  They feel much more comfortable telling (more often than not shouting).  Pushing out “messages.”  Crafting “brand” images – even if that image flies in the face of reality.  It’s hard to let go of tag-lines and multi-million dollar advertising campaigns – even when there is mounting evidence that people don’t believe it anymore.

2. Platform Misunderstanding

Every channel is different.  Content for YouTube is different from content for Twitter.  That’s why your stories need to be optimized for each social media channel.  Yet many brands continue to think about content in the singular.  They created it and then push it out on all of their existing channels – even if the content doesn’t work on a specific channel.  It happens all the time in numerous ways: posting a photograph that doesn’t fit on the Facebook Timeline, using a hashtag at the beginning of a tweet, posting a video to YouTube through a private account rather than the brand account, failure to correctly tag images on Instagram, etc…

I could list dozens of examples.

Every social channel has quirks, tricks and best practices to get the most out of content.  It is important to have platform experts who understand the channels and know how to engage with the audiences that follow and interact with brands there.

3. Creative Wasteland

Too many brands still think of social media as text-based.  They write a post and then buy a photo stock image to illustrate it.  I recently worked with one client that posted an image that had already been used 500 times.  That’s not a recipe for building creditable and authentic social media communications. Brands should think about social content as multimedia: images, graphics, videos, polls and applications.  Mixed media are a powerful ways to tell stories – especially if it reflects the look and feel of the brand.

Brands also continue to use a bulletin board approach to content.  One day they post a job opening.  The next a link to a press release.  Next a photograph of their new product. There’s no narrative – no flow.  No reason for their audiences to tune in.  Brands should consider campaigns and ongoing themes for their social channels.

If you are supermarket then dedicate July to barbecues and outdoor dining.  If you are an outdoor brand dedicate January to winter sports.  If you are an online security company dedicate a month to employee privacy.  Ladder up the content to build your story and themes.

4. Engagement Phobia

“Sorry about your problem.  Please call our customer service line at 1-800-PASS-THE-BUCK.”  How many times have you read something similar on Facebook or Twitter?

Social platforms are rooted in engagement.  Talk to the people who are complaining.  Encourage the people who love you.  Reward those who recommend you.

The worst offense?  Ignoring everybody or passing the buck.

Engage!

5. Addicting to Selling

Here’s a coupon!  We’re having a sale!  Buy this!  Buy that!

Stop selling on social channels – unless it is interwoven into your stories.  Nobody wants their social feeds clogged with advertising.  They want value.  They want entertainment.  They want information.  They want stories.

They don’t want ads.

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Do you have any advice for brands on social channels?  Any pet peeves you want to share?  Any best practices that you think work?

*Disclosure: I do work with Life is good as a paid social and digital media consultant.

Links:

Storytelling in the new Marketing

The Case for Brand Storytelling

Business, Content Creation, Social Media
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