How transparent is too transparent?
As rings true with any successful marketing mix, there needs to be a balance of humor, intrigue, human interest, etc. The most important element to your brand is that each member of your team (or at least those responsible for content) knows which content constitutes “on-brand” for your company. For instance, nobody wants a disaster relief organization joking around; this sort of “off-brand behavior” could lead to public distrust. However, Taco Bell’s twitter is full of self-deprecating humor whenever possible, in order to connect with its young irreverent customer base.
Twitter users are accustomed to being inundated with constant advertisements and choose to ‘follow’ and ‘like’ brands with a personality, instead of brands that employ conventional selling techniques. Now brands can transcend the traditional “broadcasting” role of marketing, with some creativity and a solid understanding of your audience. For brands to excel in earned media, one thing is for certain: your brand must cut through the clutter of paid content users see daily. When amending best practices, emphasis should be placed on remaining on brand through a transparent plan that ensures employees create on-brand content.
The most difficult part of keeping everyone “on-brand” is that you, as a company, must flesh out appropriate ways of marketing your brand using content. Instead of thinking of your consumer as a faceless company or statistic, having internal documents that spell out different buyer personas, or avatars, may help conceptualize quality content.
The more you understand about how these avatars interact with your brand, the easier it will be to craft narratives users will want to engage with. By seeing your target markets as individual avatars, you may be able to tailor content that engages theses personas. Successful implementation of avatars will lead to increased opportunities for engagement with a brand utilizing intellect in an interactive, humanistic way.
The Department of Marketing is an award winning, world-class boutique marketing agency. We are small enough to have a personal relationship with every client, yet big enough to tackle the largest projects. Specializing in strategy and content marketing, we have built our business on our contributions to our clients’ growth. We are headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina.
