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| Image courtesy of hrjmedia.com |
Let’s take this act
like a publisher thing for another
spin, shall we?
Everyone talks about how brands should act like publishers
(especially since technology makes most of them publishers now anyway), but
what does that actually mean?
Brands are struggling with managing all the different ways
they can publish content today. Especially on social media.
Whether it’s Facebook or Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram,
brands often struggle with how these channels — and the content they share on
them — should be different. In reality, the perfect example for how to solve this problem was
created more than 300 years ago.
It’s magazines.
As far back as the 17th century, magazine
publishers were developing different publications to suit their different
audiences. Ladies Home Journal served
a very different audience than the American
Law Journal or National Geographic.
Of course, times have changed and digital technology has
caused some magazines to fall on hard times or disappear completely. Sadly, Ladies Home Journal was shuttered in
2014 after a 131 year run.
But the example of customizing messages for a specific
audience has never gone out of style.
It’s very much the same with social media platforms today.
The folks who choose to engage with you on LinkedIn are likely very different people
from those following you on Instagram, who are also different from those engaging
with you on Facebook.
Yet brands don’t seem to get it.
By picking up a story (video, infographic, etc.) they create
for one channel and plopping it down on another, brands continue to show their
audiences that they just don’t see them as different or special. As the
consumer might be muttering to herself as she sees the same generic messages pushed out
across different channels, “They just don’t get me.”
“But,” the brands argue, “we can’t keep up! How can we create
messages for the dozens of social media channels our customers are on today…we
just don’t have the resources?”
I think I see the problem.
Let’s go back to the publisher model. If Meredith
Corporation, publisher of Ladies Home
Journal, didn’t have the revenue or subscription level to support a given
title, they would have to shut it down, as they did in 2014. Actually, this happened a lot during the economic
downturn of 2008-2009 as digital technology and ad revenues passed quietly in
the night.
The good news for brands is that no one has to lose their
job if a brand chooses to not participate in every single social channel
available. The social team can simply dedicate more time (perhaps the time
that’s been necessary all along) to create content that helps the audience feel
a special connection with the brand.
And that’s exactly what needs to happen.
So, while the ‘act like a publisher’ mantra has many lessons
for brands who are the publishers of today — including thinking about their
audience rather than their product — it also provides a valuable lesson about
focus.
We all know intrinsically that trying to be all things to
all people is a recipe for disaster in marketing.
Can we please take that lesson to heart when it comes to
social media, as well?
