Tips for Brand Managers to Win on Social Media

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Being in a digital agency means, I often get to interact with the brand managers to understand what they want from their brand content to do on various social channels and suggest ways to do so. It could be getting more likes, comments, shares on their content or more people talking about the brand/its campaign to make it a talk of the town or to get more leads.  All these can happen in much better way if there is a little more understanding shown by the brand managers.

As a brand manager you can get the most out of social media if you understand-

The Real Equity of Your Brand: For a brand manager, their brand is the best known brand in the category.  However, the reality, most of the times is not so. As a brand Manager, though your job is to do everything to make your brand the best known, but it’s a continuous process and depends upon various factors. Social Media can help in doing so, but to assume that my brand is the best and hence the people on social networks will jump on everything my brand wants them to do could be fatal. To start with, users on social networks don’t come primarily to connect with brands.  They need to feel that connection because your brand’s aspirational value or you should share some really amazing content that has capability of becoming viral. Either you have to be huge brand like Audi or BMW or you have to be as creative as Zomato. Know the real equity of your brand and don’t expect a mediocre brand and/or a mediocre content to do wonders for you.

Your Product Has to Be Good: If your product/service sucks, then it will take only so much time to get reflected on social channels too. Rather fuming on social team to manage reputation effectively, first try to build that reputation offline. Your words can’t ever overpower your actions.  Creative campaigns with lot of paid media can make you talk of the town but not in a good way, especially in long run; as the users will eventually talk about poor quality. Take lesson from some the coolest campaign maker but lousy telecom service providers and push your company to invest in making better product!

Tips for brand managers to leverage social media

Social Media Strategy is Not Made in Isolation: Social Media is not an island. Don’t do something on social channels to show as medal in internal presentations. Integration of social media with other online and offline activities is the key.  Before asking agency to run a campaign, ask yourself the purpose of the campaign and where does it fit in, in the overall marketing objective. This will help your agency to come up with suitable ideas and better results for you.

You Have Hired Experts, Hear Them Out: OK, so it’s your brand and it’s you who wants the best for it. OK, the agency is there to earn profits. But it is not ‘us vs. them’.  The foundation of agency-client relationship is based on mutual trust. The agency can earn more profits and for longer time if they give you advice which is beneficial for you. Contract apart, the two of you have similar objective- to make your brand do good on social channels, and since they are in this business and hence they command better knowledge of the way things work.  Hear them out, especially when they suggest what will not work and why. It will help you save money and wastage of resource.

… To Conclude: I know all that I have written is no rocket science, but a few observations after managing some of the well known to a little less well known brands. Trust me, if you know the reality of your brand and empower agency to help it grow, you will be getting far better results from similar investments and a good appraisal from your bosses! 

image courtesy: techwyse.com

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