Accidentally messing up your Brand.

We often talk about how nimble digital is, how swiftly it can be gauged and optimized. This implies in some ways that digital is easy. But we know better — we know the complexities and how they in fact mount as we advance the medium. It occurred to me recently that given the way we regard and talk about digital, some things are truly easier said than done. And that’s a bit of a trap.

Last week, eMarketer shared some stats on the distortion of company messages within the blogosphere. The numbers are pretty astounding, with a global average of 69% of blog postings not reflecting the company’s or brand’s intention.

This piece resonated with me, as so many of us are asked by our clients to advise them on their social media  execution. The topic comes up in every single integrated digital engagement. We tend to point to a “playbook” that may or may not exist — or that we might help create — or to the wisdom of hiring specialists. Such a playbook would guide a team as a sort of style guide and punch list to social media execution.

While distortion is also a factor in traditional media, it’s apparently far greater within digital. Many factors come to mind, but somewhat fixated on this chart and the numbers over the weekend, I wanted to share a few, based on my own observation and frequent conversations with client services folk.

1.    A company or brand will try to migrate PR efforts to a more expansive, blogosphere-inclusive, social media approach without a real game plan, without differentiating traditional approaches, and without addressing potential staffing inadequacies.

2.    Feeling the itch if not pressure to go wider into the consumer marketplace, more often than not a company just goes flat-out in the social realm. They move too quickly, before basic style can be agreed upon or before proper attention can be given to voice.

3.    A company honestly believes social efforts can be handled by interns. While it’s true that young, exuberant, digitally savvy interns can provide essential juice, the background business acumen, marketing savvy, and attendance to consumer insights of more experienced staff are key to really marshaling the effort.

4.    A brand in peril believes that social media’s sole purpose is as a customer complaint conduit. Yes, social can be used for brilliant customer service handling, but such a singular approach is not stretching the medium enough.

5.    As highlighted in the eMarketer piece, a brand does not put its owned media to work, and doesn’t take care to create original content that could be distributed or optimized above and beyond standard press fodder. This might take the form of a company blog and blog-rolling, distributed content snack, and buzz-building sequences of releasing content.

Our own digital enthusiasm may lead us to oversimplify our view of certain methods in the mix. And, yes, social media seems to take the lead on easier said than done when it comes to technique. So, there’s wisdom to creating a playbook, establishing a certain manner and map within the team that is handling your social strategy — or at least slowing down to make sure all efforts are tuned. After all, the idea of idly inflicting harm, at the rate at which we apparently are, seems pretty ridiculous.

By Kendall Allen
Kendall Allen runs most of her media and marketing pursuits through a company she established, Influence Collective, LLC, based in New York City. She also serves as General Manager for Digital Ventures at Carolyn & Co. Media and teaches digital marketing and media to executives for Laredo Group.
Courtesy of MediaPost.