You control the perception of your brand on your website, even on your Facebook and Twitter profiles. You can track your user demographics and analytics to a T. You might think it’s tidily under control … but your brand has been sneaking out at night and quite possibly leading a double life.

With a beaucoup of restrictions at home and the multitude of irresistible social media sites, blogs, groups, forums, etc. out there, it was inevitable. Your brand is blossoming and, with that, is making new friends (or enemies), demanding some independence and making a name for itself outside of your closely guarded realm. That is, people are likely discussing/rating your brand off your radar, and other people are forming opinions and making decisions based on those discussions. So what do you do?

You hone in on those discussions and help guide them. Find out exactly where your brand has been sneaking off to, who it’s hanging out with and why they appeal to each other. What do they do together? What kinds of conversations do they have? Join them. Start new ones.

With buzz metrics tools, you can track mentions of your brand on a plethora of sites, view data in chart and graph format, pinpoint any spikes or dips in your brand activity, view demographics, most active keywords, even sentiment analysis (designed to help decipher positive/negative opinions) and drilldown into combinations of data.
There are some pretty swift (free and paid) monitoring applications out there for getting to know your brand across the entire social media sphere.  Take Me To Your Leader has a thorough list of free tools. For something more robust check out Sysomos Heartbeat 2.0 or any of these.  

Neilsen’s Blog Pulse is a great place to see what folks are talking about — even if unrelated to your brand — then get creative to tie your brand into the hot topics you see fit. Check out WOMMA (word of mouth marketing association) for extra tips and resources about encouraging and facilitating positive conversations. 

You might just find that you have as much to learn from your brand as it does from you.

 

I stumbled upon this Adweek column, When Silence Can Be Golden, written by Benjamin Palmer, co-founder of the Barbarian Group. It’s one of the more interesting pieces I’ve read about social media recently. It’s particularly insightful about the challenges that many agencies and brands face as they incorporate social media into their strategies. 

Palmer, in his common sense style, brings up great points — namely, social media wasn’t devised as a marketing medium and that perhaps the industry should consider social media as less of a marketing platform. Instead, it should be thought of as a place where people go to chat about what’s going on in their lives … and, in some cases, interesting marketing.

Increasingly, the type of work our agency produces doesn’t fit in tidy, one-size-fits-all categories such as a banner ad, website or email. When it comes to social media, we closely examine the type of products and services that our clients produce and whether they’re a good match for social media. Many times they are, and the conversation flows. Sometimes they’re not, and the outcome would be forced.

One thing is for certain: Agencies shouldn’t think of social media as just another marketing platform. As a means of monitoring customers’ opinions and prolonging conversations, its relevance can’t be underestimated. As a marketing tactic, it’s important to remember what came first: The medium was there before your message. Be respectful of that fact. 

Whether we’re talking simple star ratings or in-depth analyses, user reviews have become an ingrained part of the online experience. According to Nielsen Online (PDF), 81% of online shoppers use product reviews when making purchasing decisions, while 19% of shoppers post reviews themselves.

When the peer group becomes this large, however, savvy users begin to question if their needs are the same as the reviewer’s. While a high school quarterback and a 34-year-old father might have vastly different needs, they may both purchase the same 4-door sedan. Their reviews of the car could well be polar opposites (and with good reason); nevertheless, both reviews are equally valid. The average customer can become lost in a sea of conflicting reviews.

There are a few ways to keep user reviews useful, helpful and targeted:

Qualified Feedback. With over 1,400 positive customer reviews on Amazon, the Three Wolf Moon tee shirt is at the center of a massive meme that calls into question the validity of the site’s reviews. Qualified feedback has become increasingly popular as an alternative. In order to leave a review on Angie’s List, for example, you must be a paid subscriber. The site also certifies every review to prevent fake or fraudulent feedback; as a result, it has quickly become one of the internet’s most trusted sources.

Expert Reviews. An uptick in astroturfing has caused the trustworthiness of product reviews to falter, but expert reviewers can help online shoppers regain their confidence. Trusted experts provide shoppers with consistent levels of knowledge and experience while they read about the pros and cons of a product. Integrating customer reviews alongside expert reviews, as CNET does, gives consumers the best of both worlds, allowing them to hear what the experts and the general public has to say.

Experienced Users. By promoting their top users and best reviewers, companies can increase the reliability and consistency of the reviews, content and feedback they display. Motherboard (a collaboration between Dell and VBS.TV) promotes high-quality material and attention-grabbing comments by creating theme leaders. People who continually push the conversation and post interesting content receive the rank of theme leader, which is called out every time that user posts. The hierarchy within Motherboard’s community rewards its most active contributors, who in turn feel motivated to continue posting high-quality content.

User reviews will continue to grow in popularity. Online shoppers want confirmation that their future purchases are wise, and one of the best ways to get this kind of confirmation is through the experiences of like-minded peers.

In the world of social media, fantasy and reality duke it out for your attention daily — and the lines between them get blurrier by the second. Hence the branded avatar. Whether you're sick of using the same 3 profile pictures or you just want to kill a few minutes between meetings, avatar builders give you a chance to escape from all that other...escapism.

As you might expect, companies love branded avatars. The way they see it, you get to express yourself socially while their corporate logo keeps your feet firmly planted on the ground (or your head in the clouds, depending on your persective).

But people don't just go nuts over any old avatar. It has to hit that elusive sweet spot more and more companies are competing for these days. Which brings us to the battle: 

MadMen Yourself. Went from dark horse to reigning champ in seconds flat, thanks to a perfect storm of marketing hype, genuine anticipation, authentic panache and reality fatigue. Plenty going for it from a UX standpont, too: no barriers to entry, easy-to-use controls, lots of customization options, decent sharing capabilities and a generally lounge-y vibe. The pure joy of creating clone after jazzy little clone almost makes up for the overt branding or the occasional glitch (try going back to clean shaven once you've grown facial hair...OK, so maybe they did that on purpose). Plus Dyna Moe's mid-century DIY style gives it an organic allure that's hard to resist.

Yearbook Yourself 2009. If 2008 was Thriller for this franchise, 2009 was just Bad (blame MadMen Yourself). Which is a shame, because Colle+McVoy really brought it this year. You can upload images or use your webcam, rotating, moving, scaling, flipping and adjusting skin tone until your face fits your avatar (you have 5 decades' worth to choose from — each one calling out different online stores — but you'll have to re-tweak your photo as you jump from year to year). On top of that, you can create solo or group portraits, then share them via Facebook Connect and other services as neatly branded files. Confused? The funk-fueled video tutorial explains everything. 

SVEDKA Bot Builder. This slam dunk from Barbarian Group (with the assist from Oddcast) oozes style. The Bot Builder leverages 3D modeling technology to create cool avatars that are icy and detached yet freaky-looking and kinda kinky. In other words, Scandinavian (although art director Ryan McManus tells me he snuck Tom Brady's jersey number in as a customization option — USA! USA!). Facebook Connect is integrated right off the bat, allowing you to do things like upload and use profile pictures. Once completed, your animated avatar will fly, sashay or karate-chop as you see fit, and will continue to do so in your news feed or on your friends' walls. Blame it on the alcohol.  

Dell Lounge Trans-Poser. Our contender doesn't need bells and whistles; what it does, it does well. Sporting a retro look and feel, the Trans-Poser makes cutting and pasting yourself into the action at X Games 15 as easy as twisting a few knobs. But it's the little UI touches (like multiple drag-and-drop anchor points for editing) that keep you coming back to see how far you can push reality's boundaries. Every trans-posed image gets saved to Dell Lounge community gallery, where you can see, rate, comment, download and share whatever grabs you. And because we built the Trans-Poser into the Dell Lounge, it can be reskinned and repurposed to engage users on an ongoing basis. Check and mate.

While I try to avoid self-righteous '90s alt-bros as a general rule, I've got to agree with Trent Reznor here: music is now essentially free, whether we like it or not. But then, this is true of information as a whole (just ask Chris Anderson). If it's digital, it will eventually be available to everyone for nothing. Blame the internet — it's turned us all into mini multimedia moguls.

That's why smart bands don't just write songs and make videos anymore. Instead, they use social media to build collaborative experiences on open APIs. Innovative artists empower their audiences, encouraging them to explore and examine the music until its secrets are revealed, then create and syndicate their own interpretations. The cream rises to the top, bands expand their reach and fans extend the brand by becoming part of it. 

It works. To promote the song You Came Out, for example, We Have Band shot a stop-motion video. Then they shared the building blocks (all 4815 of them), showed us how they were put together, bundled everything into a single package and spread the word tweet by tweet. Remixes, notoriety and new fans followed, and all it took was a solid creative concept, a good social ecosystem and a little guidance from W+K London (the kind of stuff we do for Dell Lounge every day). 

Smart companies could learn a thing or two from music scene pioneers. Like a great band, a strong brand inspires fans to participate so it can reach new heights. Just listen for the cues and join in.