Why Brands Should Follow on Social Media

Every Brand out there on social media wants huge number of people or fans following them. Even then analytics talking about brand page popularity in social media - decides it on their reach and followers. A quick look on their Facebook page or Twitter profile shows how many Million followers/fans they have (source: www.socialbakers.com)

Image 1 Facebook Best Brands (global)
 Image 2 Twitter Best Brands (global)


One obvious column that most miss are how few people the brands are actually following (in Image 2)

Traditionally, brands have been built like the way great Empires were built in the past. It is the length, breadth, and the populace they cover that matter. Similarly, one important aspect of any marketing campaign is “REACH”. And, Hey! did it ever occur that we call the marketing activities as ‘campaigns’ - as in Military operations, and its etymology is rooted in the Latin word - Campus/Campia, meaning wide open fields 


Since, Military/Warfare is a far-related ancestor of management and marketing, it is little surprise  that we view the outcomes of any campaign/activity in terms of:

Riches::: Profits/Sales
Capture (for slavery)::: People reached and converted
Land: Market reach/expansion

Technology has brought about a lot of change in the way people interact and behave amongst themselves and with brands/companies. Marketing too is changing. We all talk about taking a customer centric approach, where we treat the customer as the centre of our marketing universe, and the purpose of the brand is to delight the customer. This can only happen if the brands follow the customer not the other way around. 

“Increase who you are following and not your followers” This is a disruptive idea, but nevertheless, an important idea in the right direction. Imagine, if you as a brand follow your customer, know his/her likes/dislikes, be part of his/her everyday life, use your brand proposition to better someone’s situation (at the appropriate time), deliver brand promise, when it is most needed - where ever, whenever possible… will it not bring customer delight?

I know it is easier said than done, but it is possible. Especially, this approach will help smaller brands, up-coming brands, to upstart the bigger brands who have been around for a while and has the money power to do bigger marketing activities. Also for B2B brands it should be relatively easier, as their universe is smaller. The challenge is for bigger consumer brands. A small initiative in this direction could be - instead of asking people to follow the brand on Twitter, maybe it will be nice gesture to ask them to put their twitter handle and the brand can follow them. 

The idea should be not just be that you (brand) are part of people’s lives, but people’s lives being part of you (brand).

Cheers!

Santosh

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