You Brand

I just read Seth Godin’s great post Dunbar’s Number isn’t just a number, it’s the law and I hope that brands will do the same. The British anthropologist Robin Dunbar proposed that, due to the size of our neocortex, the number of people with whom we can have social relationships is limited. As Seth Godin put it “One hundred fifty people in the tribe”.

There are 2 very valuable lessons for brands in this:

Empower your organisation. There is no way that 1 social media manager alone (which is the wrong job title anyway) can have social relationships with hundreds of thousands, may be even millions, of customers, let alone potential customers.

Make sure to do your research well. Find your most fervent 150 brand advocates out there and empower them.

A lot has been written about the social web and its rules of conduct already. I decided to write this post to add my personal experiences and recommendations for brands thinking about establishing a presence in the social web.

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?