We travel through many places in our expedition toward social media adeptness, and most of it is unfamiliar territory-from digital anthropology and psychology to active listening and linguistics to experiential marketing and engagement rooted in empathy to social architecture and engineering and everything else that emerges in between. But this is why these times are so inspiring, exciting, and promising.
We're about to review a topic that is instrumental in defining the face, voice, and personality of a brand in socialized media and the ideas and lessons that materialize will most likely impact your next steps.
In the era of the Social Web, we are all brand advocates and managers-whether we know it or not.
While I spend a significant portion of my time sharing the importance of listening and observing to noteworthy conversations and the enveloping cultures that define relevant online communities, when it comes to participation and engagement, identity and branded personalities are often an afterthought.
The challenge, however, isn't necessarily how to convince management of the need to outwardly engage online. The real obstacle is defining and reinforcing the brand personality as it either existed prior to social media and/or how it should display and present to those across the Social Web. This is only complicated by the addition of human personalities into the equation, as they may or may not embody and personify the brand essence and, consequently, they can dilute the brand in every update and interaction.
Many just jump in and then get caught up in the treadmill of listening, learning, responding, and listening again, without ever stopping to ask:
What is it that we want to accomplish?
How do we wish to be viewed?
How are we contributing to the depiction of the brand?
What do we stand for?
What are our core values?
Where do we stand in these social networks, as it relates to the culture of each, and where do I as a spokesperson fit into the mix?
How does my personal brand affect the company brand and vice versa?
Yes, for many, everything starts with the username and the profile you create within the specific social networks of influence.
These data fields, while simple in their design and intent, can potentially speak volumes for the brand when the brand spokesperson isn't there to speak on its behalf. At a minimum, profiles and bios verbally and visually serve as brand beacons to position and reinforce the company, brand, value proposition, and mission, and elucidate our role as a curator, trust agent, connector, and problem solver.
Visually, profiles provide limited or boundless canvases for painting the picture that introduces, portrays, and symbolizes our brand. Less is more in social networks and therefore we should seek influence and direction from the school of minimalism, a movement in various forms of art and design where the work is stripped down to its most fundamental attributes and features.[29]
Usernames are also an important factor in establishing online identities and the presentiment established upon encountering the online persona-prior to official engagement. This is pivotal as our usernames can benefit from a consistent presence across the Web-for the company and products, as wellas the people representing them. To clarify, there are several username strategies to evaluate and plan: the company, the products, and the personal brands who personify them in respective social networks.
The inevitability of a brand identity crisis is caused by the proliferation and saturation of online presences untethered from a centralized strategy. Essentially, chaos and anarchy are inevitable as companies, spokespersons, and worse, unauthorized spokespeople swarm the Social Web and involuntarily contribute to multiple personality disorder.
But before we design backgrounds, define usernames, create profile pages, and populate information fields, we first have to take a step back to assess the state of the brand, its eventual direction, and its future goals. We begin with an identity assessment and planning strategy to create a center of gravity and parallel orbits around the brand axis we represent and also distribute to orbiting brand satellites in the social mediaverse.
Our profile should reflect our corporate soul and personality. It is our job to introduce the elements, essence, and purpose that attract the individuals seeking alliance and rapport with others possessing similar attributes.
Many companies view the tactical process of establishing online profiles as a simple "check" on the to-do list, when in fact, this is the proverbial book cover on which we're judged.
Without going through a dedicated and renewed branding exercise at the beginning of the social process, we inadvertently invest in multiple, differing personalities of not only each respective social profile, but also the people who interact on behalf of the company. Even something as seemingly harmless as not maintaining a consistent username or profile across social networks contributes to brand disarray.
Before jumping in, establish objectives, procedures, and a plan for social branding, perception management, and customer relations.
One of the more important conversations that will earn prominence now and over time is whether or not a professional should participate in the Social Web as him or herself, or as a branded representative of the business that they represent.
There isn't a right or wrong answer to this. But, however you engage, it must be practiced in a genuine, participatory, helpful, and endearing fashion. It's not unheard of to build two online personas: one personal and the other professional. And it is this strategy that I strongly urge you and your marketing, PR, product, HR, and service teams to consider.
Dell and Zappos for example, created branded user accounts for each individual. For example, at Dell, we see names such as Richard@Dell and Lionel@Dell. At Zappos, we see a pattern based on FIRSTNAME Zappos. In addition, Zappos boasts more than 250 Zappos-branded employee accounts. They are careful, as anyone on the Social Web should be, with what and how they share. Their activity must collectively build relationships while also boosting the brand and, in most cases, these accounts are used exclusively for work or professional interaction, while a separate, personal account is maintained to publish personal content.
At the point of introduction of any brand in the Social Web is the "brand you." Ideally, your character and behavior are in alignment with that of the brand you represent. In many ways, this is a role you play and that role is defined differently than the personality you exude in your personal life.
The question to ask yourself is: Who do you want to be, as defined by different groups of people with whom you wish to connect over time" For example, you obviously connect differently to friends and family than to peers. You share content accordingly. Contemporaneously, you will produce content and interact differently among professional contacts when you're on duty for work. In your "day job," you may share special offers, interesting observations about market trends, updates about new products and services, or details regarding an upcoming event.
While "being human" is consistent throughout the cycle, you are indubitably a different person to different people in different circumstances. You further fortify these dedicated personas irregularly, making it difficult to establish meaningful connections among your multiple online personalities. In some cases, these ties overlap, but most of the time, they are divergent in nature, intentions, and outcome. To put it bluntly, I really may not care about one or the other, based on the essence of our connection.
All of this is about bringing it together, even if they're maintained separately. In other words, it's far more effective and beneficial to you and the brand(s) you represent to maintain multiple accounts, at the very least, one for each professional and business persona online.
Case in point: Richard Brewer-Hay, online media maven for eBay, maintains dual personalities on Twitter. For friends, family, and peers, he maintains @ESBAle, an account dedicated toElizabeth Street Brewery, a name that affectionately refers to the residence of his family in San Francisco, which is designated as a "pub by the people for the people." This is where you get to know the person behind the persona. Simultaneously, Brewer-Hay also manages the @ebayinkblog account to share updates, news, observations, and conversations related to eBay, a company that in and of itself hosts many accounts dedicated to varying divisions, each communicating exclusive content, dialogue, and notifications.
PitchEngine, a social media release and social media newsroom generator (and a company of which I'm a stakeholder) maintained its presence on Twitter as @pitchengine. The company's CEO, Jason Kintzler, managed the account, attempting to strike a balance between professional (PitchEngine) and personal (Jason) updates as he operated under the assumption that in order to humanize the brand, you have to act and communicate as a human being. As time passed, Kintzler struggled to draw the lines between his personal and professional personas. The community also showed signs of splintering through its public responses. Kintzler ultimately split his online persona, dedicating @pitchengine to corporate-related interaction and @jasonkinztler to share personal and professional thoughts, updates, and observations.
As individuals embrace social media, in due course, they will find themselves at the inevitable crossroads of choosing an equitable personal versus professional branding strategy that's scalable, enduring, and portable. Ultimately, this discussion precipitates the necessary and fundamental obligation and requirement to establish the online brand personality, attitude, spirit, and behavioral traits that will synthesize and bolster all concerned brands now and henceforward.
In order to get us started, I borrowed from the school of personal development to help us uncover the attributes that are beneficial to the professional, personal, and corporate brands we represent. I included an early version of a Brand Reflection Cycle (Figure 12.1) to assist in the exploration and navigation of brand discovery, definition, and direction. Copy it, recreate it, change it. Whatever you do, make sure to use it or some variation of the cycle in order to assess and dictate the state and bearing of the brand (and the personal brands supporting it).
This process is not unlike the identity circles used in methods for reflecting on inner qualities in order to assess strengths, recognize weaknesses, and identify growth qualities as a means of promoting self-awareness and efficacy and building collaboration in team dynamics. It's how we recognize where we are, where we need to be, and how to cultivate focused, interactive, and flourishing communities.
Everything begins with an assessment of the brand's journey through the past, to where it is today, and, in the fullness of time, where it will reside in the future. A brand continually evolves and its past, present, and future are defined not only by the characteristics we place around this chart; they're also established and fortified through the words and actions that emanate during engagement, thus contributing to the overall interpretation and impression post-rendezvous. In any exchange, we must account for twists in the message based on the individual encounter and the reality of what we say and how it's perceived through the filters and biases that establish individual character and identity.
Storytelling: Remember, in every experience, there are always three sides to storytelling-what's said, what's heard, and the pure state of the story in and of itself, in between.
In order to initiate the process of brand identification and personality definition, we must establish a body and a supporting process of governance. This board, should it prove beneficial, will also be instrumental to the development of social media guidelines, training, governance, and ideation. Depending on the infrastructure of your organization, it may or may not be necessary to invite representatives from executive management, sales, product development, customer service, marketing, and/or public relations.
Those departments should interact on behalf of the brand in the interactive Web and participate at some level in the definition of the brand asitrelates tospecific classes of customers, peers, and prospects. This is to safeguard against the common fallacies that assume that one audience exists purely for the consumption of our corporate messages and therefore responds to each directive.
The Brand Reflection Cycle will uncover a series of important revelations that illuminate the brand, its personalities, and its character-istics, inadditionto those ofthe individuals representingit online-as it stood yesterday, as it stands today, and what it will represent tomorrow.
You can access it online, or recreate it, but at the very least, run through each of the following reflection cycles and fill in the blanks, as a team, and finalize the top traits to serve as a blueprint for building the brand persona.
The audience, surrounding environment, and the circumstances in which we are summoned define our disposition and character. Ergo, the process of corporate soul-searching may generate varying brand attributes. We need at the very beginning to establish a common center of gravity to support the orbiting characteristics that can interplay seamlessly in different situations and under a variety of conditions.
This hub is defined by our core values, and they must be consistent and prominent in defining our brand persona in the Social Web. Exploring and documenting the core values is central to substantiating our stature, intentions, purpose, and associations, as reinforced by our actions and words. They serve as the framework and pattern for our culture and ensuing communities. The goal at this stage is to identify and define our core values, as well as relate each of them to behaviors. Try to strive beyond "genericism," that is, those bland qualities that could define any and every company. Instead, choose to dig deep and determine what your brand stands for, and why customers and prospects should care.
Pillars are the support objects that serve as the foundation to sustain and fortify the brand. These qualities help us stipulate the essential properties that govern perception and regulate resonance-in a variety of conditions and affairs. In many respects, it is these pillars that influence every aspect of the social identity cycle-now and in the future.
It is during this stage where we establish the principal, central themes, and hallmarks.
What is unique to our brand that people need to know as it exists today"
Defining the brand characteristics will help us establish the traits we wish to associate with the brand through our involvement. It, of course, leverages and includes the qualities and characteristics that signify and define the brand today. Consequently, these properties should adapt to the nuances and expectations of the individuals who populate the online communities we aspire to join and inspire.
What is it that we aim to portray?
What are the words customers and peers use to describe us?
What primary characteristics describe our competition?
What are the terms that designate our desired depiction?
In societal domains, they may differ from our presumptions and assumptions.
The promise of any brand is not necessarily analogous to its aspirations-however, it is this pledge that paves the way to its meaning and direction.
The brand promise should answer a simple, yet momentous question: What is our mission"
While searching for the answer, we will discover our ambitions and commitments and rally a team of leaders into agreement and eventually into the forging of a corporate guarantee.
This response will serve as the backbone of the brand ethos as well the communications doctrine that affects all outbound marketing, service, and sales materials-essentially, this process defines the mission statement.
No brand is inanimate. The characteristics defined in the process of social personification require purpose and vision in order to maintain relevance. The attributes we define today must continually evolve along with the evolution of online media. Reaction is not our stimulus. The objective of defining brand aspirations helps us establish a goal that symbolizes those attributes we hope to one day embody. Branding is an unending story, documented and narrated through progression and maturation.
We are continually redefining what our brand symbolizes in each network and in each instance, while aspiring to typify promise, community, exemplification, and guidance.
Part of the process of merging brand attributes and personality characteristics is the unplanned reward of exposing hidden and unnoticed opportunities for direction and enlightenment.
As we fill out the "Brand Reflection Cycle," we identify the attributes that are missing based on the conversations we monitor in each respective network where we intend to make an impact. These conversational trends affect us, as they should, and require us to adapt, based on the possibilities that recurrently appear. Note, I'm not purporting the behavior of simply "moving and reacting," and thus becoming a brand that exudes an opportunistic presence. I envision an organization that can acknowledge and accept growth opportunities and maintain the desire and ambition to transform into a more customer-and market-focused partner wherever it is warranted and expected. These attributes are communicated through the brand presence and personality in every social transaction and interaction.
The term culture can refer to many different facets of anthropology, knowledge and learning, sociology, organizational and human psychology, and ethics-with each carrying its own definition. When establishing a brand persona for the Social Web, we can focus on the interpretation of culture as the beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a particular group. Culture also represents the shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterize an organization (see Merriam Webster's definition[30]).
Using the "Brand Reflection Cycle" chart (Figure 12.1), your brand team must search the corporate soul to document and associate the words and personality attributes that help define, strengthen, and protect the brand, and earn the respect, confidence, and loyalty of those who join the brand's culture.
If we haven't determined so by this point, it is absolutely crucial to contemplate, review, and designate the elements that we wish to illustrate and represent. It is a combination of these traits that forms our unmistakable brand personality.
While filling out the "Brand Reflection Cycle," we explore, identify, embrace, and manifest the personality and temperament of our brand and how we wish to portray it within each social object, community, and network.
Through this process, we reveal the threads that weave the brand to key characteristics, to best match them to the personalities within our organization. This marriage of brand personality to individual dispositions pivots on how we merge into one persona that symbolizes and personifies the brand as we've designed and nurtured it.