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Strategies In The 2010 Social Media Marketing Ecosystem

10.01.19

A few days ago I blogged my thoughts on the shape of the social media marketing ecosystem as we enter 2010. The key aspects of the system from my perspective were:

  • The lines have truly blurred. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to draw a line between different forms of communications, especially when considering the online space.
  • Successful communications programs need to integrate owned, earned and paid media to achieve their goals.
  • Two-way communication is increasing. Wherever you look, previously one-way information flows are becoming two-way. Mainstream media feed off social media while also driving it. Advertising drives attention but also content strategies.

Social Media Marketing EcosystemThe line between public relations, advertising or social media is artificial – the overlap between the disciplines is becoming greater and greater. While I doubt the disciplines will ever completely merge, the ‘Venn diagram’ of communications disciplines is moving closer to being a single circle at a rapid pace.

When we talk about integration and lines blurring, it’s easy to head down the thought path that you need to excel at everything. I’d argue it’s not that simple.

Public relations agencies (for example) don’t need to shift to pitch pure-play advertising accounts. However, agencies of all disciplines do need to hire or train people who can think media-agnostically when developing communications strategies. I’d argue they also need to be able to execute the integrated tactics that sit in the grey areas between disciplines. PR firms won’t suddenly start producing TV ads, but they may start to roll online advertising campaigns into their service portfolio.

As always, it comes back to:

  • What are the objectives?
  • Who are the key audiences?
  • What are the key considerations?
  • How do we best reach those audiences to accomplish the objectives, and how do we measure against that?

Is this new thinking? No. Is the urgency for a shift to integration increasing? Yes. It’s a long road to travel to build those skills-sets, but the need is pressing.

Instead of differentiating by marketing vertical, we may need to approach our strategy from a different perspective – whether we’re marketing our clients or our own agencies. To fail to do so raises the risk of fragmented, ineffective communications and sub-par results.

The question is, what form do those strategies take?

This is a re-post of my first post for the Marketing Profs Daily Fix, where I will now be writing occasionally. To check out the original and, down the road, my other posts there, check out mpdailyfix.com.

Posted in: marketing, pr, public relations, social media, strategy

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A Simple Way To Win Your Customers’ Loyalty

10.01.18

The Roger Smith Hotel, New YorkI’m going to tell you a story about my weekend. Bear with me – it goes somewhere…

A tale of service

This weekend Caralin and I flew down to New York to see our favourite comedian Eddie Izzard at the Madison Square Gardens. I’d heard great things about the Roger Smith Hotel from people like Chris Brogan, Keith Burtis and Julien Smith, and after spotting their Bacon Package online, it was a natural choice for our place to stay.

When we arrived, we immediately noticed that the bacon truffles promised in the package we’d purchased (no, really!) weren’t in our room. No biggie, but as we’d looked forward to trying them I called down to the desk and mentioned it (I threw out a tweet too). The person manning the desk said they’d check into it, but that perhaps they were meant to arrive the next day. A few minutes later, we received a call from the front desk manager, who apologised and said he’d like to send us a bottle of wine for the mix-up – would we like champagne, red or white wine? I also got a response to my tweet (and subsequent “wow” tweet) from @RSHotel – their own Twitter account. Needless to say, we were very impressed, and my non-social media friend accompanying us was floored.

Fast forward a few hours (and a bottle of wine), and as we tried to sleep we discovered that our room’s heater apparently had a whole family of badgers in it – that, or the steam made it incredibly loud every few minutes or so. As a result, we slept very poorly and were exhausted in the morning.

After staggering downstairs bleary-eyed we mentioned it (sheepishly – I don’t like complaining) to the front desk staff the next morning. Without skipping a beat, the lady at the desk apologized and immediately offered us an upgrade to our room, to perhaps the nicest suite I’ve ever stayed in.

The point of the story

This isn’t a story about our weekend in New York; it’s a story about customer service winning-out over problems which could have become a focal point of our stay in New York.

Yes, the problems could have been avoided. The room might not have been possessed, and the truffles (which I now crave, as we never did receive them) could have been there as promised. Still, these things happen sometimes. However, the response of the staff at the Roger Smith Hotel to these problems was fabulous. From start to finish, they completely won me over with their friendliness and helpfulness, choosing long-term reputation and loyalty over short-term savings. No amount of marketing budget could build the impression I have of them now. Lots of companies could benefit from this approach.

As a result, despite the problems (in fact, perhaps it’s because of them) I’ll be staying at the Roger Smith Hotel whenever I travel to Manhattan.

The moral of the story: It’s not just the problems that matter; it’s how you respond to them.

What other companies have you had this kind of experience with?

(Image credit: Retro Housewife)

Posted in: customer service, marketing

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The 2010 Social Media Marketing Ecosystem

10.01.04

Forrester Research analyst Sean Corcoran recently posted an insightful breakdown of some of the differences between owned media, paid media and earned media. Given the ongoing convergence I’m seeing between different communications disciplines which I’m seeing on a daily basis, this got me thinking.

Owned, paid and earned media breakdown

The thought process ultimately led me to sketch out my take on the social media marketing ecosystem in which corporations operate – shown below.

This is my take on the ecosystem within which the new wave of hybrid marketing agencies like ours need to operate as we enter 2010.

Social Media Marketing Ecosystem

Social Media Marketing Ecosystem Legend

(Update: yes, I know there are no ads on Flickr. It’s illustrative.)

This is pretty complex, so I’ve broken it down into different system elements below. Note though, that the different elements work best when we succeed in breaking out of communications silos and integrating our communications strategies.

A few notes up-front

  • As complex as this image is, it’s still a drastic over-simplification. There are many more linkages than are displayed; I’ve simplified to the graphic is still readable.
  • The importance of each social network will vary depending on the organizational context – target markets; objectives, etc.
  • The ecosystem is constantly changing. A few months down the line, the big four social networks may have changed.
  • There are many, many other social networks, forums and other sites not directly shown here. They’re grouped into “Other” but may in fact play a significant role in your activities, depending on your company.
  • This ecosystem is externally-focused. A similar system doubtless exists for corporations’ internal communications.
  • MSM stands for “mainstream media.”
  • Each of the different elements can both act as a focal point and/or support other tactics, depending on how they are used within an integrated strategy.
  • The following sections each filter certain elements from the overall ecosystem above, to provide a simpler view of the owned, paid and earned elements of the system.

Corporate Social Media Ecosystem (Owned Media)

Corporate Social Media Ecosystem

Key elements of the ideal corporate social media ecosystem:

  • Hub and spoke: Adopts a ‘hub and spoke’ system centred around a corporate social media hub, whose form will depend on the organization.
  • Tiered hub and spoke: Each social network may have its own hub and spoke system, if necessary. For example, you may have a primary corporate page on Facebook supported by several applications and product-specific pages.
  • Integrated: The hub is as integrated into the corporate website as possible.
  • Fewer Microsites: Todd Defren and Maggie Fox both make compelling cases for companies to stop and think before investing in microsites. I agree. They may have their place in this ecosystem, but shifting to a social network or building on top of your flexible social media hub may make more sense.
  • Mobile is ubiquitous: I considered including mobile as a separate component in the ecosystem, but decided against it. The web is becoming device-agnostic. Companies need to consider mobile content and applications as part of every aspect of their corporate web presence.
  • Inter-linking: The social media hub links to all external corporate social media properties and profiles.
  • SEO-powered: Search engine optimization (driven, in part, by social media activities) helps to drive traffic to the corporate website, social media hub and external social media properties and profiles. This goes for both the corporate site and separate properties. SEO could fall into any of these buckets, but for the sake of simplicity I’ve included it in this part of the breakdown.
  • Two-way flow: The information flow around social media elements is (depending on the organizational context, of course) two way.

Corporate Mainstream Media Ecosystem (Earned Media)

Mainstream Media Ecosystem

Key elements of the mainstream media portion of the ecosystem:

  • On and offline: Mainstream media exist both online and offline (many are both). Either way, they can drive significant traffic within the social media marketing ecosystem.
  • Two-way: Ideally, the information flow with mainstream media is two-way in two ways:
    • Earned media drives quality traffic to your properties; your properties can generate stories within the mainstream media (both positive and negative)
    • One of your goals should be a constructive dialogue with mainstream media which enables you to achieve your goals while making the journalists’ lives easier.
  • Multi-destination: Earned media coverage will primarily drive traffic to your corporate site in the short term. However, earned media coverage can raise broader awareness, thus driving traffic to your external properties and social media profiles (especially over time within a sustained media relations program).

Corporate Advertising Ecosystem (Paid Media)

Corporate Advertising System

Features of the corporate advertising ecosystem:

  • Social and non-social: Advertising takes place both within social media sites, but also within other online properties (search engines are a prominent example, as is CPM/CPC advertising on mainstream sites).
  • Interwoven: While paid online media stands alone within the social media marketing ecosystem (represented here by “SEM,” it is also interwoven throughout many other elements.
  • Multi-destination: Much of your advertising may drive traffic to your corporate website. However, advertising can also support your social media efforts by raising awareness and driving people to your social media profiles and properties.
  • Multi-faceted: “Ads” within many social networks can mean many things. Facebook, for example, your advertising activities might extend beyond regular Facebook ads and into “appvertisements.”

Make sense?

Together these different elements combine to form the more complex (yet still simplified) ecosystem displayed at the top of this post.

This is clearly far from complete. I’m curious as to your thoughts – let me know what you think in the comments and let’s refine this together.

Posted in: communications, marketing, pr, public relations, social media, social networks, strategy

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Book Review: Social Media Marketing For Dummies

09.12.31

A few weeks ago, I received a request to review Social Media Marketing For Dummies (affiliate link) from a publicist at publisher John Wiley & Sons, Inc. To be honest I was dubious about the book, but name of the author – Shiv Singh, Vice President and Global Social Media Lead at Razorfish – caught my eye, so I agreed to take a look.

Social Media Marketing For DummiesBottom line up front: I was pleasantly surprised. How surprised? Well, my copy is now dog-eared and I made plenty of notes as I went through – something I didn’t expect to do.

The Good

  • Excellent overview: Singh presents an excellent overview of influencer theory, key social media trends and integrating social media marketing (or social influencer marketing, as Singh repeatedly calls it) into the marketing funnel.
  • Strong on integration: One of my sticking points in general is the integration of traditional and new media tactics. Throughout, Singh goes to pains to hammer on the importance of integrating the various marketing disciplines to ensure success. His points around integrating social media into the corporate website ring especially true to me.
  • Good principles: Social Media Marketing For Dummies outlines four “rules for the game”:
    • Be authentic
    • Operate on a quid pro quo basis – give back to customers
    • Give participants equal status
    • Let go of the campaign – participants will control much of your program
  • Simple, practical tips: One of the hallmarks of the “For Dummies” series, Singh’s text is chock full of useful pointers.
  • Pragmatic on measurement: While the section on measurement itself is brief and somewhat vague (but hey, there are entire books on measurement so what do you expect), I enjoyed Singh’s perspective – that while measuring social media itself is pretty easy, tying it to business objectives can be the real challenge. Still, there are plenty of general tips and pointers to useful tools.
  • Well targeted: While I’ve mentioned the entry-level targeting of some books as a negative in previous reviews, it’s largely because I had expected them to be slightly more advanced. When it comes to a “For Dummies” book you should know what you’re getting, and in this case you do. One note, however: while the book does cover social media marketing from several perspectives, it is primarily written from an advertising perspective.
  • Easy to read: From start to finish, Social Media Marketing For Dummies is an easy read. Written in plain language and well structured, it’s a book you can speed through from start to finish, or consume in easy-to-digest sections depending on your need.

The Not So Good

  • Already out-of-date in parts: One of the problems with providing such specific tips is that some will become out-of-date quickly. The YouTube tips, for example, state that videos on the site are limited to five minutes in length and 100Mb in size, whereas the limit was raised from 1Gb to 2Gb this July.
  • Occasionally weak case studies: People familiar with the social media scene may be puzzled by some of the choices for case studies. The much maligned Skittles website, for example, is cited as a good example of a brand engaging in social media, while other examples are declared successes with little supporting rationale.
  • Weak on public relations: While Singh does tip his hat to the public relations profession (with some complimentary words), the section on PR is brief, with no discussion of the potential for PR to play a leading role when it comes to social media.

The Takeaways

Singh leads the reader through a simple, logical flow:

  1. Getting social with your marketing – big-picture basics including fundamentals in influence marketing, the marketing funnel and social media principles.
  2. Practicing SIM in the social web – preparatory steps such as developing your firm’s social media voice, identifying influencers and reaching people through the major social networks.
  3. Old marketing is new again with SIM – how to work traditional marketing tactics, including your web presence, advertising, mobile and employee communications, into your social media efforts

The book is well summarized by one of the last chapters, which outlines ten best practices to follow in social media:

  1. Open up your brand to your consumers, and let them evolve it
  2. Develop a [social media] voice without silencing other voices that support your brand
  3. Respond to everything, even if it means you’re up all night
  4. Think beyond the obvious and use [social media] to evolve your business
  5. Focus not just on social media but on social influencers
  6. Structure your marketing department for this social world
  7. Take your organization with you, from the CEO to the field representative
  8. Conduct many small tests frequently and build on each one
  9. Capture every single piece of data that you can
  10. Make mistakes, but make every effort to correct them as well

Conclusion

As I mentioned earlier, I was very surprised by Social Media Marketing For Dummies. While this book has its flaws – an overly strong focus on advertising and weak case studies among them – and it’s clearly focused on an entry level, I still found it to be a rewarding read. I took way more away from reading the book than I expected – especially when it came to marketing-focused online tools. I would recommend Social Media Marketing For Dummies to any marketers who are new to the space and looking for practical tips rather than the theoretical overview provided by most other books.

Posted in: books, marketing, social media

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Are We Seeing A Growth In “McDonalds Marketing”?

09.12.17

Cheryl Andonian (aka Momblebee) suggested in a comment that Michael Arrington’s “McDonalds content” issue I wrote about yesterday goes beyond news and content, and affects marketing as a whole. She says:

“This “McDonalds” issue is larger than just news and content. It is affecting creative work as well. Talented and trained professional freelance writers, graphic designers and web designers are competing against a glut of low end slingers who will give businesses “creative” work for pennies.”

Essentially, she say we’re seeing an increase in “McDonalds marketers” who capitalize on their clients’ lack of knowledge of creative and strategy – people who hand over low-end work at low-end prices.

Still, haven’t we always had this? There have always been “marketers” (whatever their stripes) who hawk standard, low-investment tactics in place of carefully crafted strategies. My argument would normally be that people will see the results of these efforts for what they are and that “survival of the fittest” would enable the real professionals to prevail (despite my cynicism when it comes to “social media experts“). However, Cheryl seems to suggest that this trend is a growing problem.

I wonder:

  1. Has the recession of the last year or so increased companies’ price sensitivity to the point where they will go to the lowest bidder?
  2. Has the growth of easy-to-access social media tools enabled these McDonalds marketers to reach their target audiences more easily?
  3. Is this a trend you’ve seen too?

What’s your take?

Posted in: marketing

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Conflicted About Ad.ly

09.11.23

Ad.lyBrowsing through my Google Reader feed this evening, a story in the New York Times caught my eye. The story was about ad.ly – a relatively new service that pays Twitter users to insert advertisements into their Twitter stream.

In the piece, Brad Stone gives a reasonable outline of the service, which counts “celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Dr. Drew and the musician Ernie Halter” among its customers. It also includes a quote from Robert Scoble:

““It interferes with your relationship with your friends and your audience,” said Robert Scoble, a technology blogger with more than 100,000 followers on Twitter, who says he “unfollows” people on Twitter who send him ads.”

Checking the site, ad.ly also counts Darren Rowse, Jason Calacanis, Jeremiah Owyang, Brian Solis and Gnomedex founder Chris Pirillo among its users.

I’ve made my feelings about advertising services on Twitter known in the past. Notably, I got a little upset when some advertisers started posting misleading ads through a service called Magpie back in April this year.

However, I feel a little conflicted about this story.

Pros

Money on the side

Ad.ly lets Twitter users generate additional income with little effort.

Control the ads

Users have full control over the messages that are posted – they approve every message posted through their account.

Disclosure

Every message, according to the site, is disclosed as an ad:

“The end of every Ad.ly tweet (except tweets for charity) is marked with “(Ad)” notifying your audience that this is an advertisement. In order to ensure authenticity, every Ad.ly Tweet has to be explicitly approved by the Twitter publisher and is disclosed as an ad.”

Cons

Hijacking your connections

People don’t follow you to hear about the services that pay you to broadcast their messages. They follow to hear about the things YOU like. Still, I don’t watch TV to check the ads out there, but I do watch them. That said, I don’t like it.

While I don’t recoil to the same extent as others (Shannon Boudjema outlines her concerns succinctly here), I still feel uneasy about the concept.

Social media becoming unsocial

Ad.ly inserts ads into your Twitter stream. It’s traditional media piggy-backing on social media. There’s a disconnect between the “push” mechanism in use and the two-way nature of the medium.

Gut

Logic aside, something just doesn’t feel right for me. I have nothing to back this up – perhaps it’s because I don’t consider monetizing my Twitter followers often, but it sits wrong with me.

Bottom line

In case you can’t tell, I’m finding this one tough. Most of the solid logic points to the idea being reasonable, especially given that the Tweets are both approved by users and disclosed as ads. Still, I can’t bring myself to consider using it.

The logic is there, but… there’s a but. but it doesn’t feel right for me. I can’t put my finger on this one.

What do you think?

Posted in: marketing, Twitter

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Foursquare’s Potential For Hyper-Local Marketing

09.11.13

In recent weeks, I’ve become fascinated with the location-based social network Foursquare. While I’ve been using location-based apps on my Blackberry and iPod Touch for a while (Google Maps is a good example), Foursquare is the first service that has made me stop and think about the potential of hyper-local marketing on mobile devices, not just down the line but right now.

I’ve had a couple of interesting conversations with April Dunford (wannabe Mayor of Thornley Fallis) recently, which have really spurred that thinking.

Foursquare?

If you haven’t tried Foursquare yet (and most people haven’t), here’s the deal.

Foursquare describes itself as “50% friend-finder, 30% social cityguide, 20% nightlife game.” If you live in a city that’s currently supported, whenever you arrive at a new place you can “check in” to tell the service you’re there.

Each time you “check in” you earn points, which go towards a “leaderboard” of you and the people to whom you’ve chosen to connect. If you’ve visited a place more than anyone else in the last 60 days, you become the “mayor.” It’s largely meaningless, but cute.

So far, nice and simple. And right now, that’s where the service ends. That’s a problem, because the people signing-up for the service can get bored – quickly – if there’s nothing more.

Potential

Right now Foursquare seems to be focused on growing the number of cities it supports. I’m not sure that’s the right approach. If I were them, I would work to build a critical mass of people in a few cities by building-out the product to the meet its full potential.

The team announced a campaign yesterday to allow a company to sponsor its homepage by donating to a charity, so they’re clearly open to ideas. So, let’s stop and think for a minute about Foursquare’s room for enhancements.

Friends

At present, when you check Foursquare, you can see where your friends have checked-in in the last three hours. That’s lovely, but if someone was somewhere three hours ago (unless it’s work or home) they’re probably not there any more.

However, if you were to check into a hotel downtown, it would be great to know if your buddy Steve had recently checked-in somewhere nearby – you could give him a call and see what he’s up to. Maybe the app could pop up an SMS window or offer to dial his number.

Simple, but effective – enabling real-world meetups.

Offers

As a fairly heavy Foursquare user, the company knows where I hang out. I spend my days at the Thornley Fallis offices; I go to the same places for dinner a fair bit – that sort of thing. That kind of real-world behaviour offers an opportunity for them to present me with offers. If I were to be offered $10 off a meal in an area in which I already hang out, I’d be highly likely to take advantage of the offer.

It’s a powerful concept, which can branch off in various directions:

  • A straight customer acquisition play, pushed to any user in the area;
  • A limited-scope acquisition play – offered the first time a user checks in to a place (OrderIt.ca does this when you order from new restaurants through their service – this is a similar concept);
  • A loyalty play by tying the offers to a certain number of visits to the location in question – a bit like a rewards card.

Similarly, we’ve already heard about “Mayor Specials” (for example at Coffee Groundz in Houston, Texas) where the mayor of a certain location gets special treatment. There’s room for a concerted push in this area, beyond their own website, to the owners of businesses that have proven popular with users.

Advertisements

Google has made its billions from providing contextually relevant ads to its users. Google Maps goes one further, providing slightly more targeting based on your search. Foursquare can go even deeper, targeting the areas that you frequent.

This is gold. Online retailers have a relatively easy solution to generating traffic – online ads drive people to your website. Real-world businesses have a different problem. It’s harder to drive people through your door through the current web channels.

Imagine, though, that I received ads targeted to the place where I am now, whenever I checked in. As a small business owner, why on earth wouldn’t you want to invest in ads targeted people who you know are right outside your door? The conversions are a little harder to measure than through an e-commerce site, but it’s a powerful concept.

Focus

All of these things require one foundational step: focus,

Foursquare needs to focus on developing a critical mass in its core markets. Only with a significant number of users in a market does Foursquare become a viable investment for businesses. Right now, just one Toronto business is running a Foursquare promotion, and only one person has checked-in there.

New York, Boston, Toronto – wherever these markets are, the Foursquare team should think about how they can drive deeper adoption of the tool in those communities, first from a consumer perspective and then from a business perspective – where the clear business model lies.

What do you think? Have you tried Foursquare? Where do you think the potential lies?

Posted in: marketing, mobile

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The Huge Potential Of Location-Based Apps

09.11.10

Screenshot from Google Maps application on BlackberryThe growth of smart phones – from a consumer perspective, the iPhone in particular but also Blackberries – has really driven mobile apps into the limelight at a faster rate than almost any technology out there recently.

Over the last couple of years, and especially the last few months, we’ve seen mobile applications vault more and more into the mainstream. We’re at the point now where many people don’t think twice about downloading the latest Facebook, Google Maps or gaming application to use on their mobile device – any more than they would about downloading something to their desktop.

Mobile apps even appearing for business functions now (beyond regular email) – email campaign service Constant Contact launched an iPhone app yesterday to let people check in on their email campaigns, for example.

(Caveat: Of course, many people aren’t there yet. I know plenty of people whose phones don’t even have bluetooth, let alone data plans)

So, if mobile apps are becoming a current “big thing,” what’s next?

My take: local.

Keeping it local

While as sites like Yelp have leveraged user reviews at a local level, the best mobile apps over the next couple of years will pair GPS, cell tower or manually-set location information with contextual content.

Consider FourSquare. I started playing around with FourSquare fairly recently. Essentially, it’s a social network that lets you tell your contacts where you are right now. There are a bunch of other game-playing features wrapped around it, but it’s basically a location-based social network.

Think for a minute about the potential simple extensions to a network like this:

  • Know when your friends are in the same neighbourhood as you
  • Receive special offers from businesses in the area (check in at a subway station and get a $10-off coupon for a nearby restaurant, for example)
  • Ensure ads are targeted to only come from businesses in the neighbourhoods you frequent, or even the kinds of places you visit

Take that kind of thinking and consider the optional extensions to your favourite apps. I might like to know which nearby restaurants my Facebook friends have eaten at. I might want to be notified about breaking news from near my location, whereas I might have to proactively check a news app to get other news.

Of course, this doesn’t apply to every application. I won’t go as far as Kate Imbach and suggest that you care what your neighbours are eating, but there are plenty of extremely interesting applications even for recipe-based sites (perhaps showing you which stores in your area stock the ingredients you need).

Stop and think for a moment – could your company or your clients be working location-based applications into their marketing mix?

What do you think?

(Additional: I’m on the look-out for good books on mobile marketing, especially those considering topics like this. If you know of any, let me know in the comments!)

Posted in: marketing, trends

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When Search Can Make Or Break You

09.10.26

It’s hard to argue nowadays that search isn’t important. It’s not often, though, that you see a real-world product completely base its advertising around it.

Check out these ads for the movie 2012, being launched on November 13:

Transit ad for 2012 movie

Billboard ad for 2012 movie

No website on either of them – just an instruction to “Search: 2012.”

If the website for this movie didn’t make it onto the top few pages of search results, through either organic or paid search. The movie would be in trouble, as the URL isn’t obvious either (whowillsurvive2012.com).

Fortunately for the studio, the movie tops the organic results (especially fortunate given there’s no sign of paid search):

2012 search results

Would you be confident enough in your website’s SEO to leave your URL out of your ads?

Posted in: marketing, search

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Where The Personal Brand Falls Short

09.10.23

ScreamingThe concept of the “personal brand” is still quite controversial. Not in whether it’s possible to build a significant personal brand (it clearly is), but in whether it’s the right thing to do.

Over the past few years we’ve seen lots of people develop strong personal brands through social media, and levered those brands to develop their careers.

Recently, I’ve noticed what seems like an increasing use of auto-reply emails by many people with strong personal brands.

They usually read something like this (but far more eloquent):

“Thanks for your email. Please note that it may take me a while to get back to you, as I get a large volume of email.”

I got to thinking about a fundamental problem with big personal brands (this isn’t a shot at people with them – just exploring the issue):

*You* aren’t scaleable

The problem with building a strong personal brand through social media is that you are the brand – not your product, service or company. That means that as it grows, you get additional attention. Unfortunately, your time can’t scale to go along with the additional attention.

Something has to give. You have to either lengthen your work day even more, find efficiencies somewhere, sacrifice some other element of your day to handle the flow or start to lose the connection that likely helped to build your brand in the first place.

*You* can’t be delegated

Can you offload some of this work to someone else? You can, but you are the brand, not them. That means people want to connect with you – they want to work with you; they want your input.

Over time, in my own small way, I’ve wrestled with jamming 28 hours of activities into a 24 hour day. Meanwhile, I’ve watched as much higher-profile people have wrestled publicly with this problem. Almost uniformly, they’ve been forced to cut back on the interaction that built their brands in the first place.

Can personal brands be a liability? Is it acceptable for people who’ve built their careers around connection to disconnect slightly? Or is it an understandable side-effect of success?

What do *you* think?

(Image credit: ralaenin)

Posted in: marketing

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