Don’t Let Your Brand Rest In Peace

Reputation, Image and Perception are too precious. Let not your valuable brand rest in peace (RIP), as exponential opportunities and growth are pinging at the same time

 

Our world has changed!!! Man has always been a social animal, but the “socialness” has turned more intense. The basic tenets of business have changed. It’s a virtual world, where, love, esteem, status as well as economic value are measured by the number of likes and fans one scores in Facebook. Connections and impressions on the web have become a measure of how value is created.

By far, it’s a paradigm shift. Yet, one thing has not changed though. It’s all about people, innovation, and value powered by authentic connections and collaboration. This is all about relationships that are relevant, meaningful and provide value at personal, enterprise and global levels.

Language is the new identity, the central element of the web, creating impressions in the minds of men and machines. The words are getting more wired. And, it matters a lot as they mirror the sentiments, and psyche of the folks. This is where technology comes to our rescue, especially, in deciphering the value chain of human authored content, communities and commerce.

Social, mobile, analytics, and cloud (SMAC) technologies are powering precision marketing technologies. They are helping us drive actionable insights from processing millions of tweets and digging gold from Terabytes of data. And, they are telling us a lot about the unarticulated needs of the customers by analyzing the intrinsic traits, individual profiles, behavior and psychology. In short, what customers want, across enterprises, across industries?

While there is a lot of buzz about SMAC in the market, it isn’t hype. Interestingly, data has turned “humane” as people are sharing their experiences, positive or negative, influencing public opinion gesturing at 7 inch mobile screens. Gone are the silos. Technology has flattened the geographies and democratized work culture across the globe. It’s a transparent planet where people are empowered, then ever before. You can’t hide behind the masks anymore, as bureaucracy has given way to a transparent organization.

The good news is forward thinking businesses are unleashing the power of social to drive growth and create new sources of value. This is fundamentally changing the way businesses and governments operate—from how they interact with customers, citizens and suppliers, to how they manage their employees.

Social is all about creating new innovations from analyzing social sentiments, accessing knowledge from unstructured documents and enterprise data, and creating precision marketing communication strategies. It is all about driving engagements and integrating capabilities into business processes integrated into the DNA of the brand. It is the force that helps a brand connect, empower, innovate, create value and solve problems hitherto unsolved in real-time.

This is significant, when over 75 percent of the world population is constantly hooked to social conversation on the web. Indeed, even a single tweet can snowball into a social revolution that can make or kill a brand. 

So, how does a company create a single clear narrative when business is so complex, when information is shared within seconds and when a business model is so instantly replicable? The most reputable companies are hyper-conscious of not just performance, but they are opening up to their customers and employees to stay ahead of the competition.

More and more companies are listening, offering their customers a seat in the boardroom, and setting up reputation committees, to shape real-time reputation and outsmart the competition, in a connected world. For them, human data is the new business intelligence, and social business is the new production line powered by Big Data Analytics. They know the pulse of their audience, and co-create value with them as a strategic partner. This is the reason they are nearly impossible to duplicate.

They are building reputation beyond earned media, paid media and owned media to Live Media such as roundtables, conclaves, summits, forums - fast-growing their reputation. Besides, top executives are leading live events where they can effectively communicate their messages before receptive audiences and repurpose inspired content through video, blogs and other social media – stimulating a viral and winning outreach.

The outperformers have realized that satisfied employees are going to be the reputation amplifier. Just empower them socially, and watch them succeed as brand ambassadors, evangelizing their reputation, and acting as brand custodians.

The next wave of social revolution might just be your employees. And, the good thing is the more people get involved in social, the more value we create for ourselves, our clients, our society and the world.

Long live technology, as being agile, adaptive and continually innovative will make a brand thriving or “dead” in the new social marketplace. Reputation, Image and Perception are too precious an enterprise can have, driving tangible business outcomes, in a digital world.

Let not your valuable brand rest in peace (RIP), as exponential opportunities and growth are pinging at the same time.

The Blogger is Kiran Kumar Yellupula. The views expressed here are purely personal. Please share your feedback at mediavalue@yahoo.com