Social Media – What Brands Should Know
Social media is about accentuating the finer points of a brand to a level that people talk about it, associate with it and use it as a reason to buy the brand.
At the top level, these finer points can be classified into 3 parts:
- Product Experience (Functional)
- Brand Experience (Emotional)
- Marketing Spiel (Fun)
What makes social special is that it doesn’t need to be one of the three. It can be multiple ones and there can be multiple finer points in each of these categories. What brands usually miss out on is clearly defining these as part of a strategic framework while creating their digital roadmap.
Here is a deeper look at each of these categories:
- Product Experience: If your product provides a distinct value to the customer, work your marketing campaign to talk about the experience. The communication in this scenario is more functional. Please note that this experience is all aspects of a person’s interaction with the product including search, buying, after sales and support. Dominos delivery in under 30 minutes is a pure functional messaging. You order and we deliver or else. Functional and to the point messaging.
- Brand Experience: If there are finer points in your brand that you want to focus on, this is the area you want to play. The communication in this scenario is more emotional. Apple and Tata are 2 great examples of brands where most messaging is brand experience.
- Marketing Spiel: When all else fails, create a great marketing spiel around your brand! The communication in this scenario is more quirky and fun. The focus here is to create a larger halo around the brand than there may exist or may even deserve. MakeMyTrip’s memories unlimited is just that – marketing spiel. They provide very little when compared to other OTA’s, not saying they are a bad brand.
On social, the problems for brands start when they hire agencies who don’t understand the difference between the 3 kinds and start talking marketing spiel as if it’s a functional USP of the brand.
Hence, creating the right strategy and messaging for the brand is that important. At the end of the day, that guarantees success. You can get lucky at times and be successful without doing any of this. But then there are as much chances of you buying a lottery ticket and winning. The choice is yours!
