Opinion

Use social media as a listening wall, not a wrecking ball

Clemenger BBDO’s Nic Hodges, argues that participating in social media is essential to brands

Your brand is now a living, breathing, entity.

It evolves, it changes, it adapts. And just like a person, it doesn’t do this in isolation.

And the reason? Social media. If you want to create or maintain a positive brand, a successful brand, and a growing brand, you must know how to leverage the digital space. Social media and consumer participation, applied in the right way and at the right time, will not just help your brand, but are absolutely crucial to it’s survival and evolution.

I. Nature vs. Nurture

Historically, brands have been a one-way street. Rather than a living entity, they preferred to be spreadsheets and broadcast ads. Brands told consumers what to think of them without much care as to what those very people thought of the brand. If you were to imagine these brands as being alive, they would be insensate; unable to see, hear, or feel the real world.

This behaviour is what psychologists and behavioural geneticists define as ‘nature’, the innate qualities of an individual that determine it’s behaviour. In the case of a brand this nature is created out of the boardroom, the CEO, CMO, and the marketing department.

This is the way brands behaved for an entire century.

But the psychologists and geneticists know that it’s not just nature that makes living beings unique. The other side of the equation is ‘nurture’; the influence of external factors and experiences on the way we act. And when talking about brands, it is social media that has brought nurture to the forefront.

The way people talk about, think about, mixup, mashup and experience your brand is the nurture. As a collective, this side of the equation is now far more powerful than the nature side. Leveraged correctly, it can also be the single biggest factor in creating and maintaining a positive brand.

II. Creation vs. Evolution

In considering the role of social media and consumer participation in a positive brand, it’s crucial to separate the creation of a brand from it’s maintenance. Within the nature vs. nurture framework, the creation of a brand is all about laying the foundations for the nature side. This foundation will lead to the most positive outcome once the brand begins evolving via nurture.

Very few brands, however, have the luxury of starting tabula rasa. Almost every brand has a history, a heritage that is rooted in the nature of the business. It is a history based on what the brand has been telling people it is, rather than how the consumer actually thinks and feels about it.

The role of anyone taking a brand in to the digital space is to accept its heritage along with the consumer’s perspective. Accept the nature and assess the nurture. The brand can then evolve in to the digital space in the most positive way. This evolution begins by simply listening.

III. Social media vs. participation

Social media, as a blanket term for any communication generated outside the walls of the marketing department, has come to be one of the most misunderstood, misused, and overhyped words in the marketers lexicon. At its most basic, it is media created by social interactions. And in this sense, social media has always existed, whether it’s conversations over the back fence, gossip at the monthly book club, or tall tales down at the pub.

The social media that has taken the front seat in the past decade however, is happening online. The reason it has taken this prized position is that suddenly these social conversations are available for all the world to see. And they’re searchable, sortable, filterable, geographical, and contextual.

Social media in this space lives firmly in the ‘nurture’ column of your brand’s evolution. You are standing on the outside looking in on how the public view your brand. At this level, you can’t influence anything or anyone. This is the truth, whether you like it or not. And there’s nothing you can do about it. Yet.

At this point of a brand’s evolution in the online space, it is easy to smash through the listening wall, ignoring it’s real power, and go straight to conversation to try and influence all of these people who are talking. But the wrecking ball is not the way to a positive brand. It is crucial to understand that the power of social media lies in the listening. Only once you understand the listening, can you begin to influence.

Whether your brand has a hundred year heritage, or is shiny and new, you can always listen. Because social media is simply out there for the world to see, you can start by looking at what people already think about your brand. But you can go far deeper, looking at the nurture side of your competitors, the nature of your consumers, and your category in general. To be able to create a positive brand, you need to understand what people are thinking, not what you think they are thinking.

Once you understand the social media surrounding your brand, you are able to influence and shape this thinking. Nature and nurture do not operate in isolation, it is possible to affect the nature of your brand to influence the way the world nurtures it. This is where participation comes in.

It’s through participation that nurture turns in to nature. By having a conversation with your consumers, and allowing your consumers to have an authentic and transparent conversation about your brand, you can create something truly fresh. It’s a symbiotic relationship, nature feeding nurture, nurture feeding the nature, and as the two evolve the brand will become more positive.

IV. Creation & survival

It is suicide to attempt to create a brand in today’s world without social media. Never before has so much information been freely available that will allow you to shape a new brand’s nature. The first step in creating a positive brand is actually to create one that survives. And it is the intelligence gathered through social media which will allow this nature to be created.

Through social media the failures of other brands are apparent, the spaces in the market are visible, and the attitudes of your consumers are clear. Through this observation, analysis, and listening, it is possible to create a brand that has every chance of surviving. Through social media, a brand’s nature can be crafted.

The creation of brand nature is not however something social media alone can solve. It is important to remember that the only reason for a brand existing is its commercial viability. You can create the most positive and loved brand in the world through meticulous observation and exceptional analysis, but if you’re not selling anything there’s not much point to it.

As humans, we’ve evolved to be extremely good at a specific set of things. But we’re not great at quite a lot of things. Like flying, or staying warm, or wrestling bears. As your brand evolves, it’s worth keeping this in mind. As crucial as social media may be, it’s easy to get lost in simply building a positive brand without understanding how it affects the business.

It is undoubtedly the consumer that drives the bottom line. And whereas in the past consumers bought a certain product because of television commercials and shelf placement, today it is the social space that does the selling. This happens through influencers, found via social media and engaged through participation. They are the key nurturers of the brand, and in many ways have more control over a brand than any marketing department.

Participation in the creation of a brand can take many forms, but its evolution should be towards platforms for conversation. Social media exists for the same reason that towns, bingo and pubs exist. Because as humans we are inherently social, it’s our nature.

When a brand builds a platform for conversation, it is tying together social media and participation in a real and authentic way. It is bringing the nature and the nurture together, and while it gives influencers and consumers a feeling that they are truly able to be heard, it also gives the brand the ultimate opportunity to see the nurture and affect the nature of the business. The result of this is the best possible shot at creating a positive brand, an opportunity created with social media and consumer participation.

V. Evolution & adaptation

Once your brand is a living thing, evolution is inevitable. And once a positive brand has been created online, evolution is critical. This is only possible using the social and participation platforms built in the brands creation. It is through these platforms that consumer participation can happen in almost every facet of the brand. This community does not simply supplant the role that broadcast advertising once filled, the affect of the community on the nature of the brand can extend in to customer service, technology, and product development.

While the use of social media and participation begins as a means to creation of a positive brand, this platform has now become a valuable asset to the whole business. Where there was once a room of call centre staff wading through dull scripted responses to consumer calls, there can now exist a centralised knowledge base for any questions a consumer might have. Community managers can answer new questions, and the most frequent questions need only be answered once. Take this social participation a step further and the community can actually become the support team. And it is the nature of the brand that will influence these people to nurture the brand for you.

At this point of the evolution, survival rests to a large degree on one factor: letting go. This is a concept that is both foreign and terrifying to most marketers, but an essential shift in the nature of any brand. Once this letting go is understood, it can be extremely powerful.

Whereas products have traditionally been created inside a business, then marketed and sold to consumers outside, the letting go enables an ownership of the brand by the community. That ownership only strengthens a positive brand and in turn makes the brand more profitable. Ownership can take place through new product development, with the community suggesting new areas for the brand to explore. Or it can assist in current product improvements, and even marketing decisions. Once the community has a vested interest in this way, their connection grows stronger. The community’s nurturing is visibly influencing the nature of the brand, and the relationship continues to become more positive.

It is important to acknowledge that throughout this process, the brand does not exist solely online. Traditional advertising still works. But the digital space, particularly social media and participation, is the all-pervasive thread that ties all brand experiences together. It is still necessary for brands to leverage the reach that broadcast media allows and build awareness through these channels. But the role of this broadcast content can shift with the brand, acting through creative ideas to be a catalyst for people to become involved with the brand. Done well, this unification of traditional broadcast with a positive brand community can result in content that then feeds back into all aspects of the brand experience.

At this point a brand can evolve beyond the community platform and become a publisher of content, a destination with experiences that consumers and users will actively seek out. And having consumers actively seeking out your brand is perhaps the biggest shift in marketing thinking that has emerged over the past decade. It is a state which few brands have managed to reach, but almost any brand has a shot at. And it is possible only through evolving a positive brand through social media and consumer participation.

VI. The future

By understanding the nature and nurture of your brand; by understanding the evolutionary function of social media and the broader digital space; and by understanding how they all interact with traditional marketing, it is possible for any brand to positively evolve using social media.

This evolution starts by listening to social media and assessing it’s nature. It then begins to influence the nurturers and build a community. This community then influences the brands nature, providing both a positive return on investment and a positive brand. Finally the brand becomes more than just a product on a shelf, it becomes an experience that consumers seek out. Something they want to be part of. It has evolved into something that is truly alive, something that is inherently positive. And it will continue to evolve, and this is all possible because of social media and the participation of consumers.

  • Nic Hodges is Creative Digital Director at Clemenger BBDO Sydney. This article was the winning entry in the International Advertising Association’s Write A Trip competition. His prize is a trip to the IAA World Congress in Moscow
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