Brand failure in the Blogosphere
The relationship between brands and the blogosphere has generally been characterised by failure. Failure to understand the nature of the dialogues that happen within online communities. Failure to respect the cultural attitudes of said communities. And failure to realise what relationship building really means within the online world.
So how can the likes of Walmart and McDonald’s, with their huge PR and marketing budgets, lack the insight and strategy to effectively cope with something as straight-forward as blogging? It boils down to aims, culture and a growing consumer resistance to brand communications. Bloggers, like most web users, want to discuss and share authentic content. Brands want to sell and promote. The two aims aren’t mutually exclusive but brands struggle to reconcile the difference because of the second reason: business and marketing culture.
Traditional offline brand management thinks in terms of media buys, sales funnels and the sort of advertorialising that ensures a brand message is repeated as many times as possible. This approach has given rise to a multitude of semi-successful-at-best corporate blogs: seldom discussed and often ignored. And if obvious promotion doesn’t work then there’s always “stealth marketing” to get around consumer resistance. The result? Well if Sony’s, Walmart’s, and Mazda’s experiences are anything to go by then it’s epic fail all the way. It’s all the more surprising since it goes against the very principles that good marketing communication is built on: Creatively synch your message to the needs and attitudes of your target market, speak the language of the consumer and you’re more likely to be listened to. But as soon as brands go online something almost always gets lost in translation.
Which is where, in theory, Social Influentials come in. Over the past few years companies and PR agencies have begun aggressively recruiting Socials to represent their brands online. Case in point: Jessica Smith over at Jessicanow.com. Recently hired by Fleishamn-Hillard, Smith is a corporate dream of a Social. She kicked off her career as one of the growing number of “mommy bloggers”: A group of writers courted by brands because of their influential status amongst power moms, digital-savvy mothers responsible for most of the purchase decisions in their households. Writing about business and motherhood, Smith built-up an extensive following amongst both moms and business professionals alike.
Fleishman-Hillard gains her expertise in community building and access to her word-of-mouth following. It could be argued that Smith’s credibility in the eyes of her social network would be lessened by her involvement with a PR firm. However, Smith has always been involved with corporate interests and this hasn’t harmed her blogging reputation in the slightest. In part this is due to her honesty: She’s never concealed the fact that she’s blogged on behalf of corporate interests. But it’s also important to bear in mind the attitudes of her audience and community: Most mothers simply don’t share the anti-corporate ideals of other web users who will always demand authentic non-corporatised content.
Socials aren’t a total fix for brands in the blogosphere. Undoubtedly they have an influence over the spread of online messages but situational factors such as stickiness and context will always affect the adoption of a brand message. Just as with traditional marketing, new media brand strategies need to be balanced and coordinated across different channels in order to maximise reach and effectiveness. And bloggers should also be used with caution in terms of product endorsement. Consumers, whilst trusting bloggers for certain types of information, tend to trust top bloggers least when it comes to product purchase recommendations.
Leading bloggers can become victims of their own success: By gaining a large profile they lose an ability to genuninly connect with their core audiences. They cease to be community members, people “just like me”, and become just another information source. The trustworthiness of bloggers is further undermined by sites like PayPerPost.com which pay bloggers, and not necessarily top ones, to write about products and brands. Hiring a blogger through a site like PayPerPost.com, which pays bloggers to write about brands and products, might serve as a short-term social media fix for a brand. It ticks off the “blog audience engagement” box on the marcomms to-do list in an easily monetized and measurable way. But in the long-term it will just further compromise the integrity of the blogosphere. Bloggers will stop being seen as community members, a trusted part of people’s networks, and start being seen as just another part of an advertising channel. And when that happens those blogs will cease to have much relevance to readers and they’ll either be ignored or flamed.
Because as much web users love to connect with each other in authentic dialogue, they love spotting and outing fakes much much more.
(First posted, August 5 2009 on viralmojo.net)
So how can the likes of Walmart and McDonald’s, with their huge PR and marketing budgets, lack the insight and strategy to effectively cope with something as straight-forward as blogging? It boils down to aims, culture and a growing consumer resistance to brand communications. Bloggers, like most web users, want to discuss and share authentic content. Brands want to sell and promote. The two aims aren’t mutually exclusive but brands struggle to reconcile the difference because of the second reason: business and marketing culture.
Traditional offline brand management thinks in terms of media buys, sales funnels and the sort of advertorialising that ensures a brand message is repeated as many times as possible. This approach has given rise to a multitude of semi-successful-at-best corporate blogs: seldom discussed and often ignored. And if obvious promotion doesn’t work then there’s always “stealth marketing” to get around consumer resistance. The result? Well if Sony’s, Walmart’s, and Mazda’s experiences are anything to go by then it’s epic fail all the way. It’s all the more surprising since it goes against the very principles that good marketing communication is built on: Creatively synch your message to the needs and attitudes of your target market, speak the language of the consumer and you’re more likely to be listened to. But as soon as brands go online something almost always gets lost in translation.
Which is where, in theory, Social Influentials come in. Over the past few years companies and PR agencies have begun aggressively recruiting Socials to represent their brands online. Case in point: Jessica Smith over at Jessicanow.com. Recently hired by Fleishamn-Hillard, Smith is a corporate dream of a Social. She kicked off her career as one of the growing number of “mommy bloggers”: A group of writers courted by brands because of their influential status amongst power moms, digital-savvy mothers responsible for most of the purchase decisions in their households. Writing about business and motherhood, Smith built-up an extensive following amongst both moms and business professionals alike.
Fleishman-Hillard gains her expertise in community building and access to her word-of-mouth following. It could be argued that Smith’s credibility in the eyes of her social network would be lessened by her involvement with a PR firm. However, Smith has always been involved with corporate interests and this hasn’t harmed her blogging reputation in the slightest. In part this is due to her honesty: She’s never concealed the fact that she’s blogged on behalf of corporate interests. But it’s also important to bear in mind the attitudes of her audience and community: Most mothers simply don’t share the anti-corporate ideals of other web users who will always demand authentic non-corporatised content.
Socials aren’t a total fix for brands in the blogosphere. Undoubtedly they have an influence over the spread of online messages but situational factors such as stickiness and context will always affect the adoption of a brand message. Just as with traditional marketing, new media brand strategies need to be balanced and coordinated across different channels in order to maximise reach and effectiveness. And bloggers should also be used with caution in terms of product endorsement. Consumers, whilst trusting bloggers for certain types of information, tend to trust top bloggers least when it comes to product purchase recommendations.
Leading bloggers can become victims of their own success: By gaining a large profile they lose an ability to genuninly connect with their core audiences. They cease to be community members, people “just like me”, and become just another information source. The trustworthiness of bloggers is further undermined by sites like PayPerPost.com which pay bloggers, and not necessarily top ones, to write about products and brands. Hiring a blogger through a site like PayPerPost.com, which pays bloggers to write about brands and products, might serve as a short-term social media fix for a brand. It ticks off the “blog audience engagement” box on the marcomms to-do list in an easily monetized and measurable way. But in the long-term it will just further compromise the integrity of the blogosphere. Bloggers will stop being seen as community members, a trusted part of people’s networks, and start being seen as just another part of an advertising channel. And when that happens those blogs will cease to have much relevance to readers and they’ll either be ignored or flamed.
Because as much web users love to connect with each other in authentic dialogue, they love spotting and outing fakes much much more.
(First posted, August 5 2009 on viralmojo.net)
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