Making brands more distinctive

There was a point before the dotcom crash in the early 2000s when it seemed like all you had to do was set up a website that replicated a real-world business and success was a given. Turns out the whole bubble was a ponzi scheme built on the greed of gullible investors and so collapsed under the weight of its own hubris. It was the lack of genuine content, creative thinking and engagement that underpinned the death knell of the dotcom boom.  Everyone came out wiser and committed to must try harder. 

A similar bubble exists today with social media content. But this Is not down to the current crop of internet entrepernerds. They have learnt the hard way from their dotcom predecessors. The problem is with how some brands use social to engage existing and new customers.

It seems, from the output that I see, that many really believe that as long as you are posting something, anything, then you’re doing the right thing. Of course, this is perfectly acceptable for our personal twitter comments on the latest episode of Googlebox but when this stream of content becomes the voice of a brand then that bubble will surely also burst. But with more serious consequences.

Media owners, Facebook and Google, have effectively killed organic content for brands – by monetising any effective content promotion completely. The whole concept of genuine, authentic social media content from brands is dead. Over. Kaput. No more will any company exec exclaim “it’s gone viral!” (I doubt that anyone ever did).

Effective social media for brands now has to be paid for. And guess what? that makes it advertising. The original commercial content.

And what makes good advertising? Is it pretty images that look the same as everyone else’s? Is it making banal comments to have a happy Friday?   Well, it seems like for some it is. And that’s great. Because they will fail and those that treat social media as a genuine, useful advertising format that requires creative, different and competitive ideas will prosper.