Brandividuals on Social Media

on Jun 12 in Trends tagged by admin

I’m quite sure that sometime when he ear about big companies that use different social networks to reach to their customers, but for different reason they never get all the 100% of feedback that they want.

So I  put concept from Harquail that for me explain why your company have to change the way that the think-write in social networks.

Why Bran (d)-(in)dividuals?

Brandividuals meet the implicit demand of social media for communication between one person and another.

Social media platforms demand what I call a ‘first person presence’. That is because social media platforms, from Facebook to Twitter, are designed to be used by individuals, as individuals, to create relationships with other individuals.

This requirement of a ‘first person presence’ is something that most social media users take for granted, but if you’re not a big social media user (hello, management academics!) this requirement of person to person interaction arrives as an insight.

I think that There are 6 different tactics for creating a first-person organizational presence in social media. And they are explain in the original post.

1. The “official” spokesperson , where a clearly designated representative speaks only for the organization, without any personal disclosure or personal opinion. Often, these representatives sound like corporate tools, no offense.

2. The corporate avatar, where an obviously fake character, ghostwritten by either a pr person or organization members, represents the organization’s official opinion. The avatar’s personality is crafted to support the corporate image. (@AndrexPuppy is a sweet, rather benign example of this strategy.) Fake, and okay since we know it’s fake.

3. The corporate persona: A fictitious character who is not revealed as a fake, whose identity the writer assumes when s/he writes and interacts with others. (For obvious reasons, these are hard to identify. Tell me if you’ve discovered any on Twitter, besides @StephenTColbert , or is that @StephenColbert?) Can you say “Don’t trust ‘me’?” Microsoft OfficeLive (Office_Live) on Twitter_1244738865902.jpeg

4. The CEO as spokesperson, where the CEO participates specifically as a representative of the organization. He or she virtually never speaks or shares an opinion that does not also match the official opinion of the organization.

5. The composite avatar, a multi-authored presence that is presented as a singular, real person. Authors may or may not have their own names or identifiers, but the presence is represented by one real person’s name, face, and perspective. Often the individual is a CEO, whose words are supplied by professional writers. (This is what seems to go on with @Mashable. The avatar is a photo of Pete Cashmore, but the actual tweeters are a bunch of different folks, not always identified as themselves.) Ranges from bad to good, depending on the level of transparency in the the relationship between the individuals and the organization/collective.

6. The brandividual, the individual whose online voice is his or her real personality and views mixed with the personality and views of the official corporate brand.

Original Post.

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