The concept of employees/etc. promoting themselves as a personal brand has been a much-debated topic in social media networks for months. As an independent consultant, I’ve vacillated between the value of each individual in an organization developing a thriving personal brand, all the way to the other end of the spectrum – not encouraging individuals to build their personal brand on their company’s dime, when especially in this economy, no job is entirely secure and the person may get pulled out of the company, taking valueable brand collateral with them.
I happen to love the attention I get from personal brands. There’s nothing like feeling that you’ve been singled out to be chatted up by a Tony Hsieh – CEO of Zappos.com, or Gavy Vaynerchuk from WineLibrary.tv, or any of the many personal brands who are active on social networks.
That’s just one upside…and for me, it’s all personal.
Well, actually, as smart companies know, it’s not all personal. Good one-on-one interaction is good business.
It makes it easy for consumers to choose that company’s products and service offerings. So much beauty in social networking – companies engage in online conversations and customer communities to boost business! Who doesn’t love to feel like they’re getting personally heard from a company representative? It’s so Mom & Pop, but with much better, faster service due to the internet.
So what’s the downside?
The sole person behind a personal brand simply cannot maintain the same level of personal interaction a team who is representing a company can. So, one day a ‘lone cowboy’ personal brand may interact heavily with customers and prospects. The next day, business obligations may prevent any interaction at all.
For some customers, this is just enough for them to loudly proclaim to their social network that Company X sucks because Personal Brand at Company X ignored their pleas for product support, or whatever. You get the idea.
From a customer standpoint, personal brands can potentially cause more brand damage than good for the company. Customers demand attention when they want it, and don’t give a flying flip about anything else that may be more pressing to personal brand respresentative. Upset customers vent all over the internet. The reputation management fallout is a lot more expensive for companies than simply hiring a team to help manage their brand online.
This is all just common sense. Companies, if one of your star employees is looking to become a star on the internet, seriously consider whether it’s in your company’s best interests to support that during work hours. If you decide that your business will thrive by having one shining star out of your employees represent it, definitely develop a contingency plan – a Social Media Brand Management Plan B, if you will, in the unfortunate event of that employee’s exit from the company.
Considering the precarious nature of managing your brand via Social Media in the first place, what should your Social Media Brand Management Plan B entail? Here’s a few, for starters:
- Immediate team brand deployment to regain control of conversations regarding your brand.
- Company branded Twitter, Facebook, etc, social network accounts.
- Full access to conversations and contacts made by your previous social media star
What would you add to the list? Let me know!