Brand strategy first, social media tactics second

Who knew that my last post (You Don't Need A Social Media Strategy) would get such a viral response?  It touches a nerve for social media enthusiasts, marketers and brand managers.  And it should. 

I've thought quite a bit today about the conversation going on via my Twitter feed about this post, and more explanation is obviously necessary.  

1.  Have a brand strategy and channel tactics - Every company or product must have a brand, a promise of an experience or result.  It differentiates, increases perceived value and decreases decision making time.  It is the essence of a strong business model.  The brand strategy is composed of three elements:  The Promise, Fulfillment, Monetization.  What do you offer, how will operations deliver it consistently and then how will you leverage it to drive profits.  You MUST focus on those three at a strategic level and NEVER let communication channel opportunities take priority, they are tactics.  If you make an island out of any channel (say TV, Twitter, or even trade marketing) it is very easy to lose focus on the three elements of the strategy.  So I'm not saying that you ignore social media, just don't let it drive the agenda. 

2.  Social media tactics must be coordination with mass media, direct sales and customer service to be aligned with the brand strategy.  Remember the pressing need for an eCommerce strategy for retailers in 1997-2002?  I do.  I worked on it with leading brands from Victoria's Secret to Amway.  (Read Love Is the Killer App for the narrative).  In too many cases, boutique agencies and rogue corporate groups (dedicated eCommerce business units) schemed without comparing notes with traditional channels - often pitting them as the old-timers that don't get it.  Today, in many of those cases, the winning companies have folded all things E back underneath a centralized brand focus with tremendous results.  

3.  It's not just the conversation, it's the strategy - So many social media consultants and users declare that social media is a conversation, like never seen before.  True/Not True.  Companies have had suggestion boxes, research panels, conferences, hotlines and feet on the street for decades ... social media makes it more scalable.  Really.  Often, the conversations are one-off on social media, fractured snippets of threaded thoughts that flurry up for a minute, then disappear as quickly as Twitter purges it's too-expensive-to-store data every 10 days.   If the tactics don't tie into the strategy, then what do we do with the former users of Twitter and Facebook (there are tens of thousands of them created every day)?

4. Here's the best tactical approach I recommend to brands in my consulting (which is strategic marketing consulting always done in partnership with corporate marketing and the agencies of record):  Listen in on the buzz about your brand (Twitter, Blogworld and YouTube).  This is best done by setting up a social media monitoring system that can capture, define and distribute comments to brand managers.  For one of my clients, it's an early warning system for detractors with big influence.  For another client, it's a great focus group that gives additional insight to traditional ad/brand success metrics such as Nielsen data or focus groups.  

Once you've listened and analyzed, then you need to respond or integrate the insight into the larger strategy.  I've set up systems for 'whale detractors' (people ticked off at a brand with big social media influence) where executives can directly reach out to them and increase the conversation quality to phone (tone of voice is 500% more effective at conveying intentions than words on screen).  In other cases, you might adjust your mass media or trade media campaigns based on insight without directly responding.  

Again, here's the takeaway: Never lose focus on brand strategy.  There will be many more tech innovations that will shake up communications - especially in the mobile arena.  Each one of them can derail you if you treat it on a standalone basis, condemning old-school methods along the way.  For those of you that offer social media advice, this doesn't mean you aren't REALLY IMPORTANT, it means that you need to spend at least half your time in client work coordinating with non-social media brand components, instead of just focusing on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube etc.  They are big, no doubt, but the brand group's leadership will always be bigger.  

Strategies on top of strategies equal dis-coordination ...

Contact me if you'd like to explore my consulting services 

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Comments

[Tim Bursch]

Tim,
It is so easy to get caught up in the buzz of social media, I know I have. Social media, email, display, etc are tools to connect brands and people.

At the end of the day, if your brand is not compelling or remarkable, any shiny tool is not going to help.

[Tim Sanders]

Good response Michele. I understand the power of the conversation, but unlike branding, it's still yet to be determined if it ROI's against the up front costs as well as ongoing opps expenses. I have faith it will.

While I've followed @garyvee and his book, I'm amazed how un-responsive he is to email and phone calls. He is randomly responsive to Tweets (say, maybe 5% of the time.) Ironically, he is 100% responsive to anyone that posts a one star review on Crush It on Amazon.

I've been held to a standard for a decade now that I must walk my walk, and that means keeping up with the conversation, especially when someone makes multiple attempts at it. The video link I got back from him (emailed him four times at this point, not to ask for anything, but to offer assistance) was odd: Why would you encourage people to email you, then when they do, explain that you are just too darn busy to reply.

If Mark Cuban can keep up with ALL his emails, after posting his addy everywhere, Gary can too.

[Carol Phillips]

Thanks for this post, as a professor who teaches Brand Strategy at the MBA level, this is something I have been watching closely. Ultimately social media has to be justified in terms of its impact on brand equity and to do that it needs to be informed by a brand strategy. The strategy needs are changing however. Strategies need to encompass more than a set of messages, values and a personality to generate streams of meaningful content. That drives us back to an even deeper understanding of what the consumer finds relevant, with the category and even beyond the category. Research will become even more important. Carol

[Michele Price]

Yes, it has always been brand strategy first. I think it is all too easy to hold out social media as taking everyone of track.

My observation is that business owners take themselves off track all the time. They often do not focus on what do they need to do and what should they delegate.

You did a great job of giving examples of how social media "listening" can be used. (something those of us in social media have been saying for a while)

I know your intention was not to make people think that those in social media who have talked about the power of the conversation were off base.

For example Gary Vaynerchuk brings up this topic to show people how far we have gotten from having meaningful conversations with our clients/customers.

So it is BOTH, how to integrate connection and conversation back into our businesses in ways that benefit our brands and build more loyalty.