WELCOME TO SOCIAL DIALOGUE BRAND…

LIKE THIS HAIRLESS FELINE….YOU ARE NOW NAKED.

I’ve been a part of a lot of brainstorms with clients and industry people where discussion on where a client should be or go often turns towards the grey space of “social”. A ridiculous term if you think about it in reference to communication in the digital space. I mean think about it – if it’s so social, why do we communicate through text and a viscous cycle of replies when we could simply pick up a phone or meet face to face and actually socialize as humans did for thousands of years – until about a decade ago. Social networks are at their core an evolution of unsocial habits that have become the norm in essence out of ease. It’s easier to type it and not deal with having to converse. I’m a victim to it as much as the next person. Hell, I live it, eat it, breathe it…and as some may call it on the “dark side” I also sell, design, advertise and build ideas for it. Since back when Facebook still had a useful sales mechanism in their applications and twitter was strictly the next up and comer.

I’ve designed entire advertising and contests around this “social” digital space. And you know why? Simple. Because it knows more about you than many of your friends do. It knows where you live, what you like, what age range you fall it, how you interact and how many times a day you act online as well as what you do when you are acting online. A little creepy yes – but when someone wants to through half a million dollars at selling you their latest product and convincing you it’s cool – or if you are in your late thirties, married and with children telling you it’s safe and trusted…it has it’s uses.

So now it comes to the trickle down. As this world has been for the large part completely embraced by human kind the globe over…it becomes how we communicate within it. There are plenty of horror stories out there with people that have found themselves out of a job one comment later after forgetting their boss was on their friends list. Or those that have broken too much privacy and found themselves at the hands of stockers, fraud or worse. So when it comes to how you act in this social space I might ask you why and how? Take for instance this post. I’m typing it…why are you reading it? My hope would be that I felt it was something I wanted to say…and that you in turn are curious to read. That same thought goes through every clients mind when they are presented with “social reach” as an “opportunity”. And for everyone three that say they want in two of them will not know how to handle the first attack. Do you know how many times I’ve heard and still hear “You opened yourself up it”? You have to expect dialogue. Good or bad.”

Like the movies say though – it’s not what you do that defines you; it’s what you do next. Well guess what, the same goes for businesses who open themselves up and try to have social dialogue with their fans and detractors. So to you if you are planning to do so I offer you a few pieces of advice that I’ve learnt from and seen firsthand:

1.Respond. Believe it or not it’s the best thing you can do. If it’s a positive reaction – show there are people on the other side of that logo and react positively and more importantly if it’s a negative reaction – spark up the dialogue to offer customer service and solutions. Large companies now employ their customer service online as well as over the phone to help turn around negative perceptions. It’s a smart move.

2. Keep content coming. If you don’t do anything at least every 2-3 weeks (if not daily or weekly) you might as well not bother. Competition is heavy in the social space because it’s often cheap. But that means your message can be gone in the shuffle 20 seconds after you let it out.

3. And perhaps most importantly, you are now naked. Chilly huh? Everyone can see you. Mistakes will happen. So be transparent. Be honest. TALK to your social followers. They are smart and know when you give them a well prepared PR reply instead of an honest response.

SO I POSE A QUESTION BACK TO YOU MY READERS:

how do you keep things social? Are you open or tentative? Do you reaction or act? I’d honestly like to know.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 21st, 2010 at 9 00 am and is filed under All Blog Posts, Industry Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.