With more and more brands sending more and more advertising messages daily, consumers are increasingly switching off. With approximately 5.000 advertising messages being presented to us every day, this is hardly surprising. Brands are loosing their relevance and trust at alarming rates. Besides the sheer amount of ads, the content is a major reason for this development. Many brands aim to differentiate themselves from their competitors, but forget about people’s needs. Brands need to deliver value, solve problems and enable people: People want the hole in the board and not the power drill.

Posted via email from achimmuellers’s posterous

Be prepared to be surprised, as your brand is most probably already there, effectively being managed by fans and customers!

- There is no meeting atmosphere with an agenda waiting for you.
- There is no microphone waiting for you.
- There is no reserved seat waiting for you.
- There is no on-off switch allowing you to control things.
- Actually nobody is desperately waiting for you.

Look at it it as a get-together and you are late. So what should you do?

- Introduce yourself and remember that you only have one chance to leave a first impression.
- Be unbiased, listen and show respect, since you’re the newcomer.
- Add value and don’t try to harvest what you didn’t seed.
- Know your stuff, be authentic.
- Be available 24/7/365. In the social web prime-time is all the time.
- Be spontaneous, flexible and entertaining, since this is live.
- Be consistent across all channels, reliable and transparent.
- Take your time and build personal relationships.

Many of these suggestions will sound very familiar, because they apply in your private social life. Remember the Golden Rule: Treat others as you want to be treated. That holds true for people as well as brands.

What do you think?