How do you build a brand through engagement?
Modern brands are created when there is a commitment to a brand’s content between marketers and customers. The definition of engagement is to attract or engage someone’s interest or attention. How do you do this? The answer to that is to define modern marketing. A marketer creates a modern brand by developing a personal friendship between the brand and the customer. Friendship creates loyalty. Loyalty is key to a brand’s success in the age of social media because there are so many brands.
Social networks have created an evolution in marketing. Modern marketing is evolving from successful short-term transactions to long-term relationships. A baseball analogy would be that modern marketers play a lot (long-term relationships hit home runs. Home runs happen quickly and dramatically). Old media marketing plays short ball (in short ball you hit singles and it takes a long time to score runs. Not very interesting baseball or marketing). Modern marketing is based on relationships. In the modern age of social media, it’s much more important to build long-term relationships than it is to make quick, short-term sales. On social media, this is why branding is absolutely critical.
Before the Facebook era, the transaction was the key event. Online activity told a seller how many people came to view and it was successfully sold. It was based solely on the product. They were dry numbers. There were no personal relationships that generated long-term brand value. Marketers had no idea why the transaction took place. This is critical information for developing the modern friendships between brands and customers that are critical to large amounts of sales.
Marketing has become a cold, data-driven business. At that time, there was no way to count how many people “liked” us, no way to make “friends” with people. In this new era, a brand can measure how many “friends”, “followers” and how many people “like” us. These are critical numbers and trends. They tell a seller how successful their brand is.
In social networks, both the transaction and the relationship are captured. Marketers can now search for relationships. Now marketers can focus on long-term relationships. The most successful companies on the social web are not constantly promoting their products and promotions. These companies are investing in creating friendships and relationships. They are engaging their customers through contests, shared favorite music, trivia questions, things that involve a conversation between the brand and the customer. Rihanna, the singer, is a perfect example of this. On her site there is a balance between free and monetized content.
Creating new content to attract is a huge challenge for a modern marketer. When creating a social media strategy, content democracy allows us to reach a larger audience. The more interesting our things are, the more acceptance we will have for our brand. The brand creates a mission for a seller. The content goes viral. Not only through our efforts, but more interestingly, through the efforts of other people, our friends and followers, the brand becomes influential. An interesting feature of the social media age is that brands are created and developed by customers.
An example of modern branding is how President Paul Kagame is trying to brand his nation of Rwanda. He is traveling the world creating relationships with entrepreneurs who will come to his country and create jobs. Rwanda is the site of one of the worst genocides in history. Rwanda has a bad record. President Kagame is trying to overcome that bad brand and create a new brand with relationships.