It's the mindset, not the media

A friend of mine told me the other day of a roundtable he'd been in with a number of the biggest companies in Denmark to discuss business issues. He told me that one of the most prevalent issues among these companies was: What do we do with social and digital media?

In this post, I will put forward my humble take on the issue, based on my experience working with business and brand strategies over the years including the elusive answer to the above mentioned question. The thing is, the question is actually wrong. It's not a matter of media but of mindset. Let me explain.

Why are we still discussing this?
You see, I was surprised by the prevalence of the issue. And then again not. Surprised because we discussed the issue already back in 2005 and surely we are pretty clear by now, aren't we?
Not surprised because indeed big companies are built by complex structures that complicate the strategic utilization of social and digital media and all other activities that are two-way between company and consumers. I know this from having been in several large corporations, including one of the Danish companies participating in the roundtable.
The very same day I came across this recent TED talk which concludes that:

1. The bigger the corporation/brand the more force is required to change it (think Titanic),
2. While it takes time to build a brand, it can be quickly dethroned  (think BP),
3. While many marketeers lie sleepless at night at the thought of consumers gaining control of the brand, the (for marketeers entropic) brand energy that consumers create is actually a good thing (think Lego).

The TED talk is good, solid, and funny. And I agree with everything that's put forward in it. But I'm also surprised that the 3rd point is being received as new. Like I said, we've discussed this since 2005 if not before.

But then I need to remember the 1st point. Or as John Lennon put it: 'Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans'.
He wasn't talking about business but often this applies to corporations, too. So busy planning their business that they lose sight of what's happening and they find themselves being distanced from real life, their consumers' life that is.
And this is probably part of the reason why social and digital media is still an unsolved mystery for many of them and why they're uncertain and unsettled about embracing it. And why, unfortunately, many are downright scared of opening up to their consumers, thinking of the risk of quick dethroning - the 2nd point. Well, we only have to fear it if we've got secrets to hide.

I went back into the annals and dug out a conference talk I did in, that's right, 2005 - excuse me one second while I dust it off, achoo.
It was an IPA conference in London, and as European Digital Director at Levi's I was asked to talk about how we used digital media to build the brand and cut through the clutter. I ended up talking about how to harness your consumers' engagement in the brand - or distributing brand energy as the TED talk would call it.
Let me re-state a few key points from the talk which I believe hold true today and maybe, hopefully, they can be useful to you.

1) The way we talk about it shapes our perception and thus our reality
When I prepared my talk back then, I was puzzled by the language that the conference programme was using. It talked about:

“Advertising is on its deathbed and will not survive for long”

“A fatal case of new technology”

“Confronting the challenge”

“As the reality of opt-in sets in”

What is this, the emergency room? Or are we at war? Are we all about to die? Should we pull out the first aid kit? What's going on? Clearly, digital and social media was seen as a curse, something to fight so that 'we' could survive.
That's problem no. 1 right there. It's not a 'we vs. them'. It's not a fight. But if you keep putting on those glasses, that's what you'll see.

2) If the mountain won't come to Moses...

Companies exist to fulfill a consumer need. Consumers pay companies to fulfill it. Herein lies the symbiotic relationship. Interestingly, there's a number of opposing forces within this relationship that makes it difficult for companies and consumers to get along, summed up in the brand paradox:

As responsible managers we align with company policies, governance, processes, and planning cycles because they are there so that the company can operate. It's just that consumers don't really give a hoot about this and why should they. And because they now have a voice, or rather a lot of voices, we need to also align with their way of doing things. Indeed, Moses needs to come to the mountain.

3) Social and digital media are means, not an end
It's not about using social or digital media or not. It's about whether your company is willing and able to open up to its consumers. A Twitter stream does not make a company more open or cool (or social or digital). Saying 'We believe we can learn from our consumers and we want to thank them for buying our products and show them respect by being transparent and honest in everything we do' and behaving accordingly does.
Once you've decided that you're ready to do this, are clear on the purpose and what you aim to achieve, understand the implications, and have a strategy for doing it - then you can start defining the tactics. Among these tactics may be social and digital media, but they are not the strategy and should not define your objectives. Be very careful of the tail wagging the dog.

4) Join up and align the touch points
Social and digital media enable a faster and more efficient roll-out of your strategy towards more openness and of building that deeper relationship with your consumers.
But by all means, don't think that openness and a deeper relationship means 'Let's have that creative young fellow in the digital marketing dept create a Facebook page for us, and maybe a Twitter stream and then he can write some stuff when we launch the next product'.
Don't forget that 'the new openness' must also manifest itself in internal communication and information-sharing and similarly in all external contact points. You can tweet all you want but if your customer has a bad experience with a sales rep, it doesn't really help.
The internal information flow must be constant, efficient, and substantial so the left hand knows what the right hand is doing: Customer service, sales/retail, product quality, legal, marketing, research, and so on, they all need to have the same (detailed level of) information about the happenings in the company and about the consumer in order to support the openness objective.

5) It isn't easy but the returns can be great
Don't worry, be happy. See social and digital media as a blessing. Understand that social and digital media allow your consumers to engage with your brand and your company in ways that were impossible before. Think of it this way:

As consumers take (more) control, we can create meaningful collaborations with them on both parties’ terms. If meaningful enough for them, they will do the marketing for you.

There will be lots of comments out there that you won't like and that you feel are huge misunderstandings, but see them as a reflection of your company's behavior and adjust so your consumers experience you the way you intend.

6) Learn from the learnings
As a final note, a few Do's and Dont's and remember that the democratization of media is here to stay, so you might as well get used to it, with all its challenges and opportunities: