Taking Your Brand to Social Spaces

Taking Your Brand to Social Spaces
San Francisco ● Washington, DC ● Seattle
www.arlingtonmillgroup.com

Social dominates brand executives’ 2010 “top priorities”
Social Networks
45.4%
44.5%
Digital Infrastructure
Search
27.0%
Mobile
26.8%
Source: “2010 Digital Marketing Report”, Society of Digital Agencies

BrandThe overlooked aspect of social persuasion

Do brands still matter?

“
Brands are artificial constructs we use to understand a complex world.
Ben KunzMediaassociates.com

1955
Burleigh Gardner and Sidney Levy:“The Product and the Brand”
Customers form enduring associations with a company or product
Those associations guide consumer purchase decisions

Then
brand
marketing
Marketer’s goal: sell the brand
Find the customer
Tell them your story
Repeat over time

Now
Marketer’s goal: influence and encourage
Enable customer to find you
Encourage interaction and comment
brand

Why are so few brands social?
They struggle to be heard.
They aren’t remarkable or useful.
They offer the wrong things.

Brand-generated content is dwarfed by
Traditional Brand Content
conversations
and
data feeds
about your
Social + Data Feeds are over 500x larger
brand
Source: http://oedb.org/library/college-basics/invisible-web; Jon Samsel, “Mastering Your Online Marketing Strategy”

Brand
Marketer

“
Social media is a cocktail party.
David Meerman ScottAuthor, “The New Rules of Marketing and PR”

Is your brand:
Accessible?
Interesting?
Useful?

logos trademarks
taglines PR Q&A
brand guidelines
mission statement
company boilerplate
messaging framework
naming conventions
usage restrictions
visual brand elements
corporate website
marketing templates
executive talking points
product positioning
corporate statements
Thesedo notmake your brand

people
culture
ideas
contributions
products
service
innovations
motivations
causes
Thesedomake your brand

The goal is not to create a brand
It is to uncover and enable your true brand… and express it to the world

How do you enable a social brand?
1
Get In the Conversation
2
Show Your Personality
3
Build Trust
4
React and Improve

1
Get in the conversation

1
Start with audiences that already care – then build outward
Target the social tools and spaces that fit your audience and your brand
Target wisely
Product-focused conversations are ok… if that’s what your customers want
Listen more than you talk
Enter core-brand conversations
Move into conversations related to your brand – only if you have something to add
Maintain brand relevance
Enter brand-adjacent conversations

1
…

2

2
Recruit compelling voices from across your company
Let them contribute in their own voice
Find your stars
One that works for your customers and brand
Boring is not a “style”
Set your tone
Eliminate canned communication and messages
Don’t be afraid to apologize
Be human

2

3
Build Trust

3
Build Trust
Offer information and insight
Focus on substance, not polish
Contribute
Don’t try to control your users – link freely
Share and attribute the good ideas of others
Share
Be transparent
Honor your commitments
Be Honest

3
Build Trust
Some not-so-great responses from the online blog community:
“3M Carjacks the Post-It Note Jaguar”
“3M’s Post It Note Car: How Not to Do Viral Marketing”
“ Learning from the 3M Post-It Note Debacle: Social Media Ethics Defined”
Images: Scott Ableman – http://www.flickr.com/photos/ableman/

4
React and Improve

4
React and Improve
Track and measure brand reactions regularly…
But don’t overreact to short-term trends
Track
Intervene when needed – don’t wait for a crisis
Don’t focus just on the loudest 5% of your users
Respond
Measure digital marketing performance
Benchmark yourself against others
Optimize

4
React and Improve

4
React and Improve
Heardable.com is a good tool for scoring your brand’s online performance
Rates your brand on 40 brand variables, in 6 categories, in real time
Useful for benchmarking and comparing your brand to others

4
React and Improve

Discussion

Krim Stephenson
kstephenson@arlingtonmillgroup.com
www.arlingtonmillgroup.com
website
www.blindedbymarketing.com
blog
@arlingtonmill
twitter

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Taking Your Brand to Social Spaces

by Arlington Mill Group

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