Only two ways to be ‘social’?

by asi

It’s really about time for social to break out of it’s forced silo (perhaps we should start a ‘Free the Social’ campaign). As I see it, everything you do (or can do) to be more ‘social’ can fall under these two rules – two strategies, million tactics.


1. Get talked about
This is as broad as it gets and the possibilities are endless. It’s the golden rule if you will. And the one that proves that social is not a channel. You can be the most a-social brand in the world – closed, discrete, snobbish and arrogant but still get everyone talking about you because your products kick serious ass, they become social objects, a center of conversation and people can’t help but talking about you. Apple is of course the best example – as my mate the almighty Gor likes to say Apple are a fairly evil company who just happen to make better products.

Now if your products and services aren’t made of the stuff that gets people talking you can still be interesting and get talked about. There are so many ways to make, do or say different kinds of good stuff (entertaining, inspiring, interesting, useful, nice) that get talked about it. Crispin Porter know this and that’s why they do great marketing – they are not social media specialists, they just understand what makes people talk (although they sometime over stretch it IMHO). You have the opportunity to get talked about in almost every aspect of your business – your advertising, your CSR, and of course, your customer service – everything communicates, everything can be a story.

2. Get closer
Again, pretty broad and there is no prescribed way to get closer to the people who care about you (or people who are very angry with you). The social web is all about redefining relationships. It’s about extending and strengthening relationships that already exist, and allowing the creation of new ones. The opportunity here is to create real value out of those relationships to make them easier, more valuable (to both) and to extend from the physical to the digital and back again. Think Dell – one of the least sexiest brands on the planet and yet one of the most social (admittedly, they had to learn the hard way to become who they are today but their work is very impressive). Get closer by getting human – listening, being attentive and genuinely interested in what people have to say.

Another trendy way to get closer is by democratising your business and let people become part of you. Naturally, there are trends and fads – at the moment co-creation or crowd sourcing is done mainly around product innovation (Walkers, NikeID) and marketing (T-mobile) but this is still pretty basic. The opportunities to put people at the heart of your business considerations are countless. I can’t wait to read John’s book.

Now I should probably add rule #3 – get lucky. Because the above golden rules are not prescription to success. For every great example there are ten #Fails. In many cases it’s down to lack of clear context, lame or half-arsed execution. Note that the best ‘social’ examples are full-on intentions – in 99% of cases social media won’t scale in itself. But at the end of the day, you will need the L factor because success can be pretty random and elusive…

naff’ said. if you think of another way to be ‘social’ that don’t fall under these two broad rules, enlighten and challenge me…

PS: I’m working on a very exciting project with some very lovely people on social stuff – more soon.