The Social Media Golden Rule

Just when you think you’ve got this whole brand experience thing figured out, along comes another form of social media that threatens to shake your grasp on the status quo. Over the past year, Twitter has taken the spanner-in-the-works title from Facebook, which took it from YouTube, which took it from Flickr, and so on. While it can seem daunting to consider managing your company’s image over so many forms of new media, this phenomenon can benefit your company — you have more opportunities than ever to generate positive brand experiences with your customers. Of course, this means there are more chances to make a mess of things as well. So how do you make sure you do more of the former and less of the latter?

1. Be generous
2. Drop the facade
3. Follow through

These principles may be easier for smaller companies to adopt, since they are often in more direct contact with their customers. But just as the web helped to level the playing field for small businesses trying to wrestle mindshare from their larger competitors, social media offers big firms the chance to reconnect with their customers more directly. Perhaps the most appropriate way to introduce the guidelines below is to sum them up in 140 characters or less. Let’s call it the Social Media Golden Rule: Use social media to engage with your customers as you have your vendors to engage with you.

First, be generous
Most of what we think of as social media began life outside the corporation. Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, you name it – they all started as the pet project of small groups of individuals. Lacking corporate sponsorship, these sites relied on the support and contributions of online communities to evolve and to expand. This generosity remains part of the DNA of each of these tools to this day — they are referred to as consumer-generated media for a reason. To engage with these community-driven tools credibly, you must utilize their currency of free information and proper attribution.

While it may be appropriate to announce awards and accolades using social media channels, consider the value of that information to your potential and current customers. Does that announcement entertain, enlighten, or educate your viewers? Think of the difference between sharing the fact that your company won an award versus sharing freely the submission that won the award. To play on the old adage, share, don’t tell.

Self-promotion is a type of sharing, certainly, but it is by definition self-serving (or at least self-centered). The rapid growth of social media tools and sites is due to their ability to convey information with high potential for sharing. One of the best ways to raise your social media credibility, then, is to promote others instead of yourself (or your company). By acknowledging the contributions of others and by promoting their content, you engage in these media’s most definitive act: sharing. Doing so consistently and with relevance to your industry may increase both your credibility and your reach. Your company can become a trusted provider of useful and relevant content, regardless of its source.

The biggest downside to the proliferation of social media is the increasing sense of information overload. While it is to your advantage to share useful information, being an information curator provides an additional expert service to your customers. Any content your company generates will benefit from your reputation as a generous and knowledgeable member of the social media community. You won’t need to promote your company — others will do it for you.

Second, drop the facade
Being authentic does not mean simply representing your company accurately, it means stripping away the pretense. Nothing sets off BS detectors more than when companies use corporate lingo on the blog or via Twitter, or when they share only the most sanitized content on YouTube and Flickr. Press releases are not blog entries. Being authentic means being candid and being real.

You don’t have to air your company’s dirty laundry, but openness and transparency are inherent to the appeal of all social media. Whether they are prospective customers or employees, folks interested in learning more about your company and its corporate culture will look to see how you present yourself via these channels. They can sniff your pretense a mile away — and they won’t like it.

By participating in these media more as a member of the community and less as a corporation, you will be seen as a valued contributor to the culture around each of these tools. The bad news is that letting down your corporate guard is only the first step, if a crucial one. Interacting with your customers on their terms gets you into the game. They will appreciate your effort, but will not forget what you represent: your brand.

Lastly, follow through
Though these media may force you to engage with your customers on their terms, it does not change the fundamental nature of the relationship: They are your customers (or at least potentially so). As such, they will expect you to address their questions (or complaints) with the same attention as you would via more traditional customer service channels. These expectations may seem contradictory or even unfair in light of social media’s more informal atmosphere, but your willingness to accept these terms of engagement can set you apart from other brands.

Twitter may epitomize these competing expectations best, with its simultaneous drive for brevity and immediacy. Customers you please may or may not praise your efforts to their followers, but those you don’t will state their displeasure swiftly and bluntly. Whether broadcast as complaints on your Facebook fan page, or as 140-character open letters, your responses must reflect the same responsiveness and professionalism you would show a customer who has waited too long on hold for customer service. Servicing customer needs in such public forums may not be comfortable, but well-handled resolutions will demonstrate — and broadcast — your commitment to customer service more authentically than any slogan or tag line.

Those of you advocating on behalf of a more formal brand may need to shift your tone of voice when utilizing these media, but you cannot afford to make the mistake of thinking professional customer service etiquette does not apply. Edgy and more casual brands will likely find social media to be familiar ground, but may miss the opportunity to enhance their perceived accountability.

Conclusion
Social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube encourage candid dialog and responsive interactions. Most people appreciate those qualities in any relationship — not just the one they have with their vendors of choice. When combined with a willingness to be accountable, these elements provide the raw material your company can use to create positive brand experiences.

The barrier for entry to participate with these media is so low that it is tempting to just jump in and figure it out along the way. Some folks may advise you that since these media cost nothing, you have nothing to lose. That perspective forgets the possibility of a company damaging its brand reputation. So while it is untrue that engagement with social media has only upside, it is true that these tools offer potentially huge returns on your investment. Keep the three principles outlined in this article in mind as you craft your social media marketing strategy, but if in doubt, remember the Golden Rule: Engage with your customers as you would have your vendors engage with you.

[Written for and originally published at iMedia Connection]