experience matters

Remember a time when you had certain freedoms and someone ruined it for you? I remember when I was in high school and we were allowed to leave the school grounds to go out for lunch. A lot of kids began skipping classes instead. You already know what happened. They stopped letting us leave. A few of the reckless ruined it for all. Corporate social media makes me feel like my “lunch freedom” was taken away, again.

The recently released Forrester study, Time to Rethink Your Corporate Blogging Ideas states, “Only 16 percent of consumers trust what they read on company blogs.” Darnit. In the past year, we’ve watched 100’s of marketers create branded blogs.

What went wrong?
Many marketers weren’t prepared. In short, they were used to pushing mass-media communications and were not ready for a dialogue.

1. Consumers caught on quick. They saw that many marketers weren’t honest in their outreach. Blogs and branded communities were selective about what comments and criticisms they’d allow to go public. What’s worse is that some of these “communities” didn’t allow for comments at all. I don’t need to tell you that using smoke and mirrors is wrong – we all know that.
2. Many marketers were lit on fire. Build a Facebook application. Create a YouTube branded page. Commercial messaging flooded the platforms, and marketers weren’t equipped or ready to take on such a responsibility. I can’t tell you how many articles I’ve read in the past year – from some of the greatest minds in our industry- that say “go out and try it – it’s free.” Now we’ll all pay for it.

Is Social the wrong way to distribute my brand message? What do we do next?

Don’t give up. Social media is more important to your brand now more than ever. Don’t let the ADWEEK sound bites scare you away. Dive deeper. The approach is easy. It’s the execution that takes effort. The Forrester study gives some reasons for when and how to blog for business. You can read those for a start, if you need direction. However, I think there are 4 fundamentals to remember when you want to use social to enhance the consumer experience with your brand.

1. Don’t make assumptions. Listen to communities to understand their needs and their current perceptions of your brand. If you aren’t ready to invest in listening, you will not succeed. No exceptions.
2. Social media should not be done in a vacuum. Set goals that ladder up into overarching business objectives. Calculate the monetary and human resources you need to put against these goals to help prove ROI for across channels.
3. Add value. Don’t create a branded community unless it aligns with insight and brand strategy. Start with existing communities and reach out to your brand ambassadors to help amplify a message they already believe in. Aid their efforts by providing them with information, tools and buzz worthy information.
4. Don’t forget the loyalists you already know. People rarely align a social media kick-off for a CRM initiative. Start with your champions. Listen to them and learn how to scale their brand evangelism.

It all comes down to being committed to the consumer. There is no free lunch in social media.