One of the remarkable things I’ve noticed about the discourse surrounding social media is that it is heavily focused on brands over people. And by brands, I don’t mean the collection of individuals inside and outside the company who’s actions and opinions determine how others perceive the entity…no I mean faceless logos that are supposed to represent the entity.
The Celebrated
The most celebrated companies…
- are the corporate pages that have amassed the largest following.
- are the corporate pages that have temporarily engaged an audience through a clever contest or app.
- are top-down, rather than collective.
- are using advertising to be social.
- are celebrated for selling more things, rather than making the biggest positive impact.
The celebrated agencies…
- are the ones that help the biggest companies amass the largest following.
- are the ones that run “campaigns,” contests and build apps.
- are the ones that manage being social for their clients.
Strangely Enough
Strangely enough…
- we hear very little about the individuals at these celebrated companies that solve an individual customer’s problem.
- we hear very little about the company that has a social strategy that revolves around it’s workforce, rather than it’s logo.
- we hear very little about the agencies that are helping small and medium sized businesses adapt to the social era.
- we hear very little about the agencies that favor culture shifts over campaigns and contests.
Award Winning
Social isn’t about connecting people to things, it’s about connecting people to people. Somewhere along the line, that idea got overshadowed by bigger purchases. If we’re not careful about what we reward, we’re going to be stuck with social media that doesn’t feel very social.
Much like the dangers of Wall Street’s quarterly focus, we should be careful not to reward short term social media wins at the expense of a bigger impact over the long term.
This has been a general observation by Jeff Gibbard. What do you think?