Brands and 2.0

Proceed with caution

Brands and blogging don’t enjoy a marriage

made in heaven

Blogging changes the writer’s behaviour

more than it changes the readers’ behaviour

If your brand is going to blog you need to

understand what you want to change about

it

This is uncomfortable because brands

usually like changing consumer behaviour

not the other way round

There are no ‘old’ or ‘new’ media – there are communications

media and social media

Communications media are the natural

habitat of brands

Their use of social media is problematic

Social media demand that you trade control

for influence

Unless brands are happy with this they should stay out of

social media

Just use it to listen to the conversation

Social media is all about conversation

Brands only have a role if they can make

the conversation more interesting

Advertising can’t succeed against the

conversation but it can influence and

contribute to the conversation

The social media gurus bang on about the

stupidity of advertising but really it is a

criticism of media

Creative agencies must free themselves from media - they are

content creation companies

And increasingly content co-creation

companies

Media neutrality must mean just that – we

shouldn’t care where our content appears

Maybe media agnostic would be a better term

Media is only interesting as content distribution vehicle.

And increasingly it will be free to use.

Social media can’t be measured so lets stop

trying

We have to get comfortable with

managing the immeasurable

Lets face it the truth is that all good

advertising is a leap of faith

Only poor advertising is predictable