“I can remember as a kid growing up watching the commercial with the owl licking the lollipop saying… How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop…”
Now here I am over 25 years later wondering… “How Many Conversations Does it Take to Get to the Center of a Brand???”… And what’s even all the more intriguing is, the idea that some big companies out there are absolutely oblivious to the idea that people are authentically trying to figure this out!
How many does it take? Do you want me to tell you?
One.
Yep. One. All it takes is one conversation, over 15 networks and over 5,000 people (maybe a few more or less) talking about your brand for the new wave of “Web Savvy Pioneer” to get to the “center” of a brand. What’s scary about this idea is that what’s discovered at the center just MIGHT not be your best characteristic. It might be that thing that you may have thought was hidden in the Boardroom under one of those yellow tablets of paper that you get from the drugstore on your way to the office – because you know you are going to have that all important “downsizing” meeting that EVERYONE is dreading… Why did I pick “Downsizing”? Because see… THIS is where your brand can unravel in the matter of minutes – where before you could go on, invisible to the world YET highly visible to those affected… Let me dig a bit with you… Trust me, I am not losing my mind. This will help your thought process.
Take Jack. Jack is a pretty loyal Team Player at your Brand Site (company) and he is a “Die Hard Brand Fan” of yours. Jack attends EVERY company function and does EVERYTHING to a level of Excellence. JACK IS INDEED T R U S T E D by everyone around him, his word is GOLDEN. He is in modern terms – “The Man”. One characteristic about Jack that is working in his favor – is that he is totally “Social”. This guy, at 25 years old knows half of the planet. His Blog is KILLER and everyone admires his drive, and loyalty to his Brand… YOUR COMPANY is second to none.
For the sake of time… Let’s fast forward…
It’s 9am on August 26, 2008 and your Company is facing some real stuff. Budgets are upside down and things are bleek at best. You know you will have to let go of some of the team – and it’s NOT because you want too – BUT because you HAVE to. You know that you are going to have to cut in order to survive. SO this is where that trip to the Drugstore comes in – THIS is where the yellow pads of paper come into play – SO play attention…
You arrive at the office (as normal) with some pretty heavy burdens on your shoulders. You make the announcement to the Receptionist (who too is quite the Social Butterfly, and has one of the hottest MySpace pages EVER) that you need everyone to meet in the Boardroom at 10am…
At 10am you feel like your life is coming to an end… And the meeting starts. So here you are. You and your team, and little to their knowledge - some of them will not make it out this room with their jobs. The meeting starts… Let’s fast forward… because this part is grim.
It’s 11am and the meeting is over. People are packing up their desk – and among them is Jack and the Receptionist. Jack – is totally dismayed, discouraged and quite honestly a bit confused. The Receptionist is totally blown away because she called the meeting that ultimately took her income away. See where I am going with this? Let’s make it clear…
Jack goes home and fires up his MacBook Pro (the one he is worrying about making the payments for now) and pulls open his only tool for comfort right now… His Ping.fm account. He pulls this tool out because in an instant he can broadcast to over 15 of his Social Networks with just one click. He starts off with…
“My company did something really sucky to me today…”
From there over 1200 of his Twitter friends know that something is up – Jack is NEVER negative, and 500 Rejaw friends, and 1000 Mashable friends, and ummmm… Get the picture? Next post…
“My company XYZ Favorite Brand fired me with no warning…”
Whoa – the plot thickens right? Because now people are really listening and chiming in… Someone who was not hired by your company comes back via their Ping.fm account and says something like…
“Yeah!! XYZ Favorite Brand discriminated against me and did not even give me a chance!!!”
And this is where it gets really sad… Remember the Receptionist? Well she always felt that the opportunities for her at your company were slanted – just never said anything to you about it… When she get’s home (because she is subscribed to Jacks RSS feeds – this is how she keeps a pulse on what’s happening at your company in “real time”) reads jacks post, and tracks back to the “Discrimination post” posted by someone that was never even working for your company…. The Receptionist writes a Blog post (to relieve her stress) and she does it in MySpace (remember she has like the hottest MySpace page EVER) and she post a bulletin in MySpace that says…
“THIS IS WHY CORP AMERICA SUCKS… READ MY BLOG…”
Wow. I could go on… BUT if you are not already thinking…
1. Corporate Training in Social Media
2. Social Media Teams
3. Online Reputation Management
4. Conversation Tech’s
Then there is nothing I can personally say OR do that will get you to see the future of brand positioning, or plain good old fashioned brand integrity preservation. Nothing. So I ask again…
“How Many Conversations Does it Take to Get to the Center of a Brand?”
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