Hill+Knowlton Strategies

I was thinking about how brands act online and some still get it horribly wrong, many get it beautifully right. But, what have a learnt from their endeavours – here are five points on how brands need to act to get it right in the social media space:

1. 1. Give it away: Whatever you are creating, building or designing, give it away for free. If the community has been involved it’s as much theirs as it is yours.
2. 2. Relinquish control: You have limited control over the space anyway and the community thrives on freedom. Don’t be dictatorial or the community will turn its back on you.
3. 3. Sack the lawyers: Unless your lawyers can act at the speed of conversation then don’t get them involved. Guess what, Twitter doesn’t work when every tweet has to be approved. By the time you get to post anything the topic is old news and the community has moved on.
4. 4. Be flexible: Things change – social media changes all the time, constantly incredibly quickly. You need to change with it and you won’t be able to if your campaign path is set in stone.
5. 5. Get out of the way: The community is there to have fun and engage with one another – if you’re not going to facilitate that then get out of the way. If you don’t, you’ll be run over.