Harris Diamond is CEO of

Weber Shandwick, a global

public relations firm in New York.

The world has entered a new place

where people interact with brands

pretty much anywhere and every-

where. We are seeing every day how social

media allows people and, in some cases,

whole companies to have a real dialogue

around products and services.

How people value a brand today has

vastly expanded to include their percep-

tions and interaction with brands and

products, and it comes unvarnished

and from every angle. Companies need

to focus on better socializing their brands

so they can resonate with infl uential

online communities.

To market a socialized brand today you

need to think about how to speak directly

to consumers’ needs and satisfy them fully

on an emotional level. Th e following are

some guidelines to eff ectively create and

manage socialized brands:

• Create a community of advocates.

Today’s brand community is a place

where people get to share their

thoughts or feelings about a brand and

product. Dialogue is now wide open

and inclusive. It can happen on your

site, your Facebook page, your smart-

phone or anywhere your customers are

talking with each other, such as a mom

community or fan site. These spaces

welcome dialogue and ignore one-way

messages that are directed at them by

companies or brands. Sometimes these

communities also are built in person

such as at events, trade shows, in-store

demonstrations, retail counters or even

Meetup groups. With today’s channel-

agnostic consumers, the best commu-

nications must focus on reaching the

right people online or offline, and

encourage them to join your network

of advocates.

• Move beyond “Likes.” Increasingly,

Facebook is not just a destination for

consumers but a part of a larger fabric

of the Internet. Th e “Like” button shows

up on content from news sources to

product pages. Company Facebook

pages are rapidly changing from a

secondary to primary source of interac-

tion with consumers, with the company

website still relevant and important,

but oft en less current. However, “Like”

is similar to a free admission to the

carnival—people will walk past the

uninteresting booths and won’t play.

Getting large numbers of people to

“Like” your page is not the end goal; it is

the starting point. If you can get custom-

ers past the equivalent of “Like” and

engage them, you will create aff ection,

affi nity and ultimately advocacy for your

brand and products. One-to-one engage-

ment that can be scaled easily is a mandate

for any company hoping to build and

manage a successful socialized brand.

• Protect your brand’s reputation. We’ve

all seen the challenges presented when a

brand reputation is damaged online. Th e

negative stories in major media that start

from blogs, Tweets and user-generated

videos can overwhelm the steadiest of

brands. Companies need to be more

proactive about monitoring their online

reputations and be prepared to act

quickly and strategically to the viral

spread of rumors, misinformation and

hearsay that can erupt overnight. Online

crisis simulation before you need it, as

Weber Shandwick developed in our prod-

uct FireBell, can help mitigate these types

of crises and activate your dedicated

community of advocates ready to go to

your defense.

• Socialize your C-suite. More executives

now recognize that the Internet has swept

through corporate corridors and board-

rooms, transforming the media land-

scape. A growing number of them at

all levels are starting to consider taking

advantage of these newer social chan-

nels to tell their company and brand

stories. As storytellers and narrators of

their brand promises, C-suite execu-

tives will gradually become more social-

ized and willingly participate in video on

their websites, Facebook and YouTube

company-sponsored channels and will

demand that their speeches and inter-

views get repurposed through the many

channels now available online.

• Be relevant. Make sure the campaign

being created is relevant to your audiences

and that expectations are based on achiev-

able goals. Compound the interest in your

brand and products by not only repurpos-

ing existing content, but by adding value

to your communities of interest wherever

they may be. Creativity moves people, and

focusing on delivering creative ways to

engage your customer can have a tremen-

dous impact on people’s perceptions and

behaviors when it comes to your brand

and products. Work to fi nd as many ways

as possible to add value fi rst and be confi -

dent that an engaged base of custom-

ers will follow. Th is core will allow you to

build a bigger base over time.

Even by following all of the above, your

customers today will still always be more

connected, spread out and unifi ed than

your brand can possibly be. Th e key is to

give them better access to relevant infor-

mation, timely answers to the questions

they ask and the means to protect repu-

tation at all times. If you create engaged

communities and give customers a place

to congregate and interact, you will miti-

gate challenges that arise in real time. Your

advocates can help you; they’ll answer

questions of other customers and ease your

load in trying to manage millions of peer-

to-peer interactions. Th at’s the real social

savvy we all aspire to.

BY HARRIS DIAMOND

hdiamond@webershandwick.com

Five Rules for Socializing Your Brand

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