The top story in today’s issue of the SmartBrief on Social Media e-mail newsletter is this sharp little piece by Judy Shapiro that does such a wonderful job of crystallizing what embracing a social-media mindset can do for a brand.
“In the best of situations, the community is the inspiration for the company brand strategy; they set the pace and type of dance to be shared. More than that, in this model, different communities will inspire their own special dances that will need to be incorporated into the brand strategy iteratively over much shorter cycles than ever before,” she writes.
Of course, using social networks might make it easier to adopt that collaborative mindset. But then again, Pete Blackshaw does a pretty good job of arguing that these attitudes are way, way older than the technology we associate them with. Maybe these networks just woke us up to the secrets that marketing masters had been hoarding for decades. I guess that’s the social-media equivalent of the chicken-egg question — “Which came first: social-media tools or social attitudes?”
Has embracing social media changed the way you manage your brand? How? What’s the relationship between the tools and the attitudes of social media?
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Yes I believe my use of social networking is changing the way I manage my brand. As a realtor my brand is me. It just a matter of getting me in front of all my friends and their friends. I used to be leary (sp) about posting comments on sites, etc but because I see the benefit of doing so I try to surf the web with the intention of hopefuly making new contacts.
PS…Need a REALTOR in the State College/Penn State area just look me up at http://www.Isellstatecollege.wordpress.com.
Hi Jesse – Great juxtaposition of these positions. My POV reflects lots of years of doing "traditional" branding and marketing with the last 4 years focused on social and digital media.
IMHO here's what's not changed — branding smarts! The ability to crisply express your brand value. And Pete is right when he says that is old as the hills.
Here's what's changed – everything else like; 1) digital listening versus research based listening 2) social media engagement versus one to many marketing 3) iterative brand execution versus "big brand launches".
More and more I have found myself having to throw out most of what I thought I knew about marketing execution in favor of an updated model. In this new model, it's that not you don't do these other more traditional tactics but what's changed is WHEN AND HOW you use them.
Some companies have long understood all about social media branding like Harley Davidson, as one commenter on my piece explained.
The struggle for marketers today is that you still need maturity of branding smarts that typically comes with experienced folks but now these strategies must be developed within the context of a new branding engine that younger "techno geners" are better at understanding.
There are few marketing people with strategy depth coupled with social media competency. At least as far as I have observed.
Judy Shapiro
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