So when you’re developing your brand’s response to the new world of social engagement, here’s how you could approach the challenge:

1. Decide that you really must do ‘something about’ social media because your competitors are
2. Have someone in the marketing department put social media channels on the media plan
3. Get someone to start a facebook page and twitter account
4. Appoint one of the marketing assistants to be social media manager
5. Hire an ad agency, turned, digital agency, turned social media agency
6. Get them to generate some wacky ‘social’ campaigns.

Feel better? Good, but it won’t work. because more than ever ideas matter.

Before you jump into social media, why not use social media as part of your strategic brand process to ask yourself the following:

1. Who is our brand for? (use social media to start to really understand people)
2. What are they dissatisfied with? (very well answered by listening in social media channels not shouting)
3. What is our product or brand? (Your idea)
4. Why does that actually matter to these people? (more listening)
5. Unlike the weaknesses of the alternatives, which are (still more listening)
6. Why is our brand the antidote? What do we provide? (Your big idea, delivered beautifully)

Don’t forget ‘social media’, but don’t think it will answer all your marketing dreams either.

Being social is something you are not something you do. If your company culture doesn’t focus on listening to customers and building relationships with them, then you probably won’t use social media to do it either.

Understanding customers matters, genuinely engaging with them matters.

Having a compelling brand idea matters.

How much of your budget should you spend?

Before attempting to answer these questions, here are some interesting statistics….

Facebook traffic is up 60% this year. In fact, this September it dislodged Google as the top on-line destination. In August it celebrated the truly astonishing milestone of 500 million users.

Twitter usage is approaching 200 million, and Twitter are (perhaps over confidently?) forecasting 1 billion users in the not too distant future.

Increasingly “social” or reciprocal use of the internet via mobiles isn’t going to away either. As smart phone usage continues to grow at a fantastic rate, access to Facebook via mobile browser grew 112 percent in the past year, while Twitter experienced a 347-percent jump. It seems that mobile and social go hand in hand. Social media is a natural sweet spot for mobile, accessing social networking sites via a mobile browser appears to be an extension, from phone, text and e-mail, of how people communicate with their circle of friends.

So do you think you spend enough time or money on managing the “social” aspect of your brand? Err No?

So what’s holding you back? Maybe it’s because you fear social media – as the promo line for the recent film “Social Network” pointed out “You don’t make 500 million friends without making a few enemies”.

But at least you’d have a good idea of who your enemies are.

Social networking isn’t a fad.  It’s an increasingly valuable way to organize on-line communications.

Do the math.

Think about some of the most successful brands, Apple, Ikea, Virgin etc. It’s not, in fact, the intangible aspects of brand strategy that makes them great brands, but the outstanding value they deliver. So no matter how consumer centric marketing has (rightly) become, it should never be the job of the consumer to add value to the brand; it must be the other way around. Here’s a tool that will help you define how your brand actually adds value to consumers. Its called Brand Ambition.

Headmint uses a range of value added marketing tools, which have been devised and sharpened up over the years, to help our clients uncover difference and ‘specialness’. But our tools come with a health warning: over reliance on the tools themselves can have just the opposite effect: me-too, samey, uninspiring crap.

Our tools are clever, but they're not magic

As marketing people we’re all on a quest for sparkling creativity and breakthrough insights. Our tools deliver on both, but don’t ever let anyone have you believe it’s magic. There’s no getting away from the tricky commercial problems and difficult business decisions that brand teams have to make along the way.

It still takes ability, experience and judgement to do that.

When we give presentations to our clients we like to rely on a range of tools, such as our voices, various props, live demos, hand gesticulations and, even maybe a PowerPoint slide or too.

So we cheered when Matt Blaze, professor of computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania, politely refused conference organizers when they asked him to supply his PowerPoint slides. When vehemently pressed, these are the slides he sent. Love it!

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/nov/25/generation-why/?page=1

But in reality, what do marketers think of social media, how are they using it, and to what effect?

We’ve been looking at the 2010 State of the Brand report conducted by KRC and Mires Ball with great interest, to see how brand executives are using social media marketing to connect with their audiences. Here are the facts:

Ø      The majority of marketing executives are not changing their brand strategy based on the availability or influence of social media sites.

Ø      Most don’t believe that social media is fragmenting audiences making it harder to reach customers.

Ø      In fact, over half are using marketing through social media channels as an opportunity to increase brand awareness, by reaching potential customers who were not reachable before.

Ø      Although just over one fifth consider they are effectively using social media effectively now, the vast majority expects to be using these channels effectively in the next 2-5 years.

Ø      Although many believe that social media makes it easier to create brand loyalty, significant numbers disagree.

So it seems that social media marketing is rife with challenges for protecting brand integrity, as well as opportunities. It’s the proverbial double edged sword.

We see the opportunity, but fear the fear the consequences of the apparent lack of control.

Classical marketing theory is based around control. It always has been. In fact almost everything we do as marketers is control oriented in its origins – take the phrase “target market” for example, which gives us the impression that people are static in their attitudes and behavior, that we can line them up and make them like our brand.

Being in control is a symbol of power and people who appear to lack control are often viewed negatively, be it in business, on the sporting field or in their personal lives. The majority of organizations have been structured to maintain power through control, for example, the classical hierarchical organization is a means for a few to control larger numbers of people and their activities.

So for many established brands, social media marketing spells the relinquishing control.

That’s a very big ask.

Whether you work in marketing, either in a large corporation or in a tiny entrepreneurial start up, influencing people is probably the most important part of your job – whatever it is.

The need to get people to sign-up to your ideas is critical if you’re a salesman, but equally important if you want to push ideas through your organization.

When you’re a brand development consultant people pay you for ideas. That’s the value you add. Getting people to engage with your ideas is pretty important.

At Headmint, we expend a great deal of effort talking to our clients about the importance of  ‘telling their brand story’. So on the theme of ‘practice what you preach’, we’ve been actively encouraging our brand consultants to keep the use of PowerPoint presentations to a minimum. It has become a bit of a crutch, and worse than that, rather than helping us to engage organizations with our ideas, it has actually started to get in the way.

Why? Because it focuses on the rational, rather than the emotional, the side of the story that engages with our clients and their organisations.

So in the spirit of the Headmint’s ‘drive’ to re-program the default use of   PowerPoint presentations, here are some simple guidelines if you want to stop the proverbial (PowerPoint) cart from leading the (brand development idea) horse:

1)      Stop using PowerPoint slides as a script. All that does is encourage you to look at your screen. In turn, that looks like you don’t believe in what you’re saying, even if you do. I like to speak from the heart, first learning a set of prompts, so I don’t leave anything out. For those that find that tricky, the prompts can be easily noted on a pad in front of you, or even a set of key cards.

2)      Limit the number of slides. Only use a slide if it improves the point you’re making. Resist the temptation otherwise.

3)      Never use a PowerPoint slide to repeat a point. Use it to reinforce one. It’s much more effective that way, because it gives you the opportunity to deliver some hard emotional proof. Rather than list the stats for something, show an image of the outcome instead. e.g. rather than showing data on the effectiveness of traffic calming measures, show some shocking images of can happen when car drivers don’t slow down.

4)      Limit the number of words on every slide. 6-10 words at the max. If people are reading, they’re not listening to you. Put the words in a well organised document to leave behind at the end.

5)      Never give out, or send out your slides afterwards. They won’t work without you. Send them a concise summary instead.

Go on….it’s easier than you think.

It’s a great little marketing communications tool we’re using all the time.

Check it out.