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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