Flawsome: why brands that behave more humanly, including showing their flaws will be awesome

FLAWSOME definition:

Consumers don’t expect brands to be flawless. In fact, consumers will embrace brands that are FLAWSOME*: brands that are still brilliant despite having flaws; even being flawed (and being open about it) can be awesome. Brands that show some empathy, generosity, humility, flexibility, maturity, humor, and (dare we say it) some character and humanity.

Two key drivers are fueling the FLAWSOME trend:

HUMAN BRANDS: Everything from disgust at business to the influence of online culture (with its honesty and immediacy), is driving consumers away from bland, boring brands in favor of brands with some personality.
TRANSPARENCY TRIUMPH: Consumers are benefiting from almost total and utter transparency (and thus are finding out about flaws anyway), as a result of the torrent of readily available reviews, leaks and ratings.

HUMAN BRANDS

FLAWSOME sits as part of a bigger trend towards HUMAN BRANDS, something that we’ve touched upon in many previous Trend Briefings: RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS, BRAND BUTLERS, GENERATION G, and so on.

So, while HUMAN BRANDS might not be a ‘new’ theme, four currents are now converging to make consumers more focused on brand attitude and behavior than ever before:

“human nature dictates that people have a hard time genuinely connecting with, being close to, or really trusting other humans who (pretend to) have no weaknesses, flaws, or mistakes”

Consumers’ disillusionment at corporate behavior has (finally) spilled over into outright disgust. As a result, any brand that can show business in a new light will be (deservedly) welcomed with open arms.
- Nearly 85% of consumers worldwide expect companies to become actively involved in promoting individual and collective wellbeing; an increase of 15% from 2010 (Source: Havas Media, November 2011).
- Yet only 28% of people think that companies are working hard to solve the big social and environmental challenges (Source: Havas Media, November 2011).
Consumers are more and more aware that personality and profit can be compatible (think Zappos, Patagonia, Tom’s, Ben & Jerry’s, Michel et Augustin, Zalando and more). With every business that succeeds while remaining reasonable, helpful, fun or even somewhat ‘human’, consumers will become increasingly disenchanted when dealing with traditional, boring, impersonal brands.
- Most people would not care if 70% of brands ceased to exist (Source: Havas Media, November 2011).
Online culture is the culture, and inflexible, bland ‘corporate’ façades jar with consumers who live online where communication is immediate, open and raw (also see MATURIALISM). What’s more, people openly broadcast and share their lives online – flaws and all – and thus brands are increasingly expected to do the same.
Last but not least: human nature dictates that people have a hard time genuinely connecting with, being close to, or really trusting other humans who (pretend to) have no weaknesses, flaws, or mistakes – don’t assume brands are any different.

February 13, 2012February 13, 2012

What happens to your online profile when you’re gone?

Three Facebook users die every minute for a total of 1.78 million Facebook users in 2011, what is the future of your digital self?

You might not know what happens when you die but you can control what happens online!

You are filling the internet with status updates, image and video creating new digital dilemmas such as:

Whether you want to live forever online?
How to protect your privacy after death?
How to maintain your digital legacy?
Who to appoint as your digital executor?
Whether You Would Want to Be Digitally Resurrected

Do you know the death policies of all your online accounts?

February 3, 2012February 3, 2012

The Coca-Cola Company: Social Media Monitoring on a Global Scale

The Coca-Cola Company’s Digital Manager of Communications, Natalie Johnson, shared how they monitored conversations about their brand on a global scale across the web.

January 19, 2012

Social Media ROI Metrics Still Chaotic

Brand marketers continue to struggle with determining return on investment for social media campaigns. Eighty-eight percent admit to gaining positive ROI on campaigns, but a study released Wednesday from Wildfire, a social media platform company, shows that the metrics remain all over the map.

While inconsistencies make it difficult to create and follow industry standards, Wildfire CEO Victoria Ransom said 75% of survey participants said they still plan to increase their social media budgets this year.

Gaining positive ROI is great, but what do marketers measure?

January 17, 2012

4 Common LinkedIn Profile Mistakes

With the new year comes the time to clean up our desks, desktops, files… and start the year on the right foot.

In the digital era and the social media era, we need to add a few tasks to start the year on the right foot. It’s time to take another look at our social media profiles, clean them up, bring them up to date, optimize them and get them ready to work harder for us.

Let’s start with LinkedIn. With an exponential user growth, I see the same mistakes over and over again, let’s start with some basic mistakes I see over and over again:

1-Professional headline:

Your professional headline is your brand, it appears next or under your name everywhere your name appears, in searches, groups… With your name, it’s the first thing users read when they come across your name, make it count. Your professional headline will determine if someone will merely glance at your name or want to click on it and read your profile. It’s who you are, what you want to be.

By default, LinkedIn will put in your last job title, is that who you are, what you want to be? Will that entice potential business partners or employers to take a closer look at your profile?

Take as much time as you need, craft a headline people will remember and entice them to want to know more about you, tell them how you can help them

2-Profile picture:

Social media is a very public space. Chances are, if you are on LinkedIn, you want to be seen and found, you want to network.

Would you go to a networking event with a mask on your face? Probably not, then why are you doing it on LinkedIn?

Posting a professional photograph has a number of advantages.

Potential contacts do not like incomplete profiles, incomplete profiles send a message that you have something to hide
A photo helps potential contact remember you
A photo helps identify you are who you say you are
A photo builds trust

3-Public profile

Your “Public profile” is actually a misnomer, it’s your public URL. Think of LinkedIn as a personal website. Each website comes with a URL (Unique resource Locator), a unique address that identify them and allows users to find them on the web.

Your “Public profile” as LinkedIn calls it is your personal URL, the address to your personal profile, a link you can add to your resume, marketing material, business card.

Just as any website address, your URL should be short and memorable.

Why short? The shorter and the easier to remember, the less contacts and potential contacts will make mistakes (typos) when they search for you and the more likely they are to find your profile. A short URL is easy to remember, it’s easy to add to your marketing material

By default, a LinkedIn public profile link looks like this: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/first-lastname/24/9a5/766 Try to remember that one, spell it to a potential contact and have that contact type it without mistake.

LinkedIn allows you to chose a custom (also called vanity) URL, the URL looks like this: http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/yourname*.

Which one would you rather spell, print or type?

4-Websites

By default, LinkedIn adds “My website”, “My Blog” “Other” as the links to your websites or internet properties. LinkedIn also offers ways to customize the links. Use that opportunity to rename them, use your website name, your blog name. LinkedIn profiles are extremely well optimized for search engines, if you search your name, chances are, your LinkedIn profile will come at the top of the search.

As a bonus, renaming the links with the name of your website or blog will give them a lift in searches (SEO effect)

January 6, 2012January 6, 2012

10 Things To Know About Liability In The Social Media World

With the explosion of websites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, in-house counsel should give careful consideration to the unique problems social media presents, how it affects the workplace, and how to address employees’ and third parties’ social media usage.

As with the rise of the Internet and blogs, existing employee and intellectual property issues play out in the social media world in sometimes surprising ways, creating new challenges and problems for in-house counsel. Social media has the capability to dramatically increase these problems and challenges by providing a much larger, well-connected audience. The following are some specific, brief considerations that in-house counsel should analyze and address with company employees.

1. Secrets are gone in a flash (or click).
2. Employee posts in social media may be protected speech.
3. Employee posts may subject the company to liability.
4. Employee posts may prompt federal administrative action.
5. Social media provides an exponentially bigger, real-time audience for traditional employee-relations problems.
6. Using social media as a recruiting tool can backfire.
7. Registering user names is a cost-effective, protective measure.
8. Implementing social media policies is becoming a best practice
9. The best defense is a good offense.
10. Social media adds litigation considerations.

December 30, 2011December 30, 2011

Study Predicts Growing Use Of Social Media In Healthcare

A recent study concluded that social media would continue to be a factor for healthcare providers and consumers while at the same time, ambiguous regulations, privacy concerns and a host of other factors limit how patients and healthcare providers use social media

Once these hurdles are overcome, the PwC report said, social media “will open new opportunities to improve health delivery and outcomes

Read full article

December 28, 2011

Social Media and Disclosures, Learning from the Hyundai Case

Hyundai avoided a collision with the Federal Trade Commission on the treacherous social media marketing course. The FTC suggested yesterday that its decision not to recommend enforcement action against Hyundai for a blogger outreach effort designed to build buzz around the brand’s Super Bowl XLV ads could be a lesson for marketers.

Three rules of thumb for social media marketers:

Mandate a disclosure policy that complies with the law
Make sure people who work for you or with you know what the rules are
Monitor what they’re doing on your behalf

See full article

December 7, 2011December 7, 2011

Deluxe Corporation Project REV

Very interesting presentation by Deluxe Corporation’s SEM and Social Media Manager, Nathan Eide.

Nathan shares how they launched a social media campaign to create brand awareness and gain customer feedback and insights on its products.

Nathan shows how you can raise awareness to your brand, gather intelligence on your product and services, do product development using social media

December 6, 2011

Influencing the Influencers

Microsoft’s Director of Community and Online Support, Nestor Portillo, shared how they leveraged both internal and external social media sites to better manage their vast customer network and create a customer-centric approach to their business.