Facebook, Twitter, and the Art of Avoiding the Dupe

Wow, has it really been almost a year since I posted last? How did that happen? Hard to believe. Here I am, preaching to others about keeping their brands fresh, and I go and let moss grow on mine. What does that say about my personal brand? Am I really “so last year”?

I’ve been thinking a lot about branding lately, and the impact social media has on our audience’s perceptions of us. I was in a meeting the other day and actually heard someone say “I got to get me some of that Facebook!” Do what? What exactly does that mean? Honest mistake. Not his fault. Many people think you can throw up a Facebook or Twitter account and become relevant all of a sudden. It doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t matter how many Facebook or MySpace pages you have, or how cool your hash tag is, or even how many billboards you put up, because if you don’t have a message that people put value in, you become even more irrelevant than before. You become a “social spammer”. We all know them. They post everything. They tell us about their dogs and cats and trips to the convenience store at 3AM for Boones Farm (seriously?), and even though we thinks it’s cool at first, eventually we go for the dreaded “HIDE” feature of Facebook and remove their card from our mental rolodex. My question is, if we do this to our friends, and our families, as marketers, do we risk doing the same things with our prospects and customers?

All I am saying is this: too many times today, when it comes to branding, we skip over defining our goals and developing our strategies, and go right for the tactics. All Facebook and Twitter are (as it relates to corporate branding) is tactics. Even worse, without a sound strategy behind them, they are pretty lousy tactics at that. I think people get so caught up in being out there that they forget to really focus on what they hope to accomplish. If you get your audience to your page, don’t let them down. Don’t take their wallets. Offer something of value, or they end up feeling duped.

OK, so my Chinese New Year’s resolution is to post more. I refuse to be last year’s poster child for next year’s rising star. Whatever that means.