Social media, SEO, marketing and writingGhostbranding: Should a Company Utilize External Writers to Represent Their Brands on Social Media?
I’d like to answer my own question by first making two cautionary statements: 1) Ghostwriters are hired hands, 2) A brand is a terrible thing to waste.
That said, I think a company runs a huge risk outsourcing their social media activities to an outside microblogging service unless that ‘ghost-brander’ has some skin in the game. As hired hands, a ghostwriter can make a mistake, be fired, and move on to her next gig while the brand must suffer through the blunder, repair the damage inflicted, and then control the negative impact of the snafu’s aftermath.
If you are a marketer at the helm of a large brand, I would urge you to think twice about the quality of the ghostblogger (is this an individual, a social media agency, etc.) and what type of training and recourse you may have in the event an unforeseen error occurs, or word gets out that your brand may not be as ‘authentic’ online as the corporate brand promise pontificates.
In the book, “The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding,” the authors state that the most important aspect of a brand is its single-mindedness. They tell how most great brands possess a singularity of focus, a clarity of message. Playskool has done it with safety; Armani with class; Apple with “hipness.” The authors caution that the easiest way to destroy a brand is to put its name on everything. Diversification, they argue, can lead to a weakening of a brand’s quality, a drop in top-of-mind awareness, and more.
The gold rush of brands to quickly embrace social media–either to begin listening, to engage and solve, or to get heard–can lead to some pretty poor decisions that could cost your brand dearly in the long run.
Many firms are experimenting with social media by looking at it as an extension of their internal marketing department’s duties. Some have already found great success by promoting social advocacy as an extension of an employee’s job function–training and empowering certain staff to become the living, breathing, extension of their brand’s value proposition (the face of the brand). Ford’s social media advocate, Scott Monty, comes to mind. Another is Tom Dickson the CEO of Blendtec–who can ignore his “Will It Blend” series on YouTube? Then there is Frank Eliason, the man behind @comcastcares on Twitter. Consumers seem to value the sincerity of the brand voice and in most instances, press accolades confirm what everyone feels–this activity makes sense and is good for both the consumer and the brand.
Alternative social media outreach initiatives that many companies opt for instead resemble classic outsourcing models which utilize external creative agencies, social microblogging, and even ongoing monitoring services to represent brands on sites like Twitter, Posterous, Squidoo, Facebook, YouTube, and the like. With the ‘right’ brand partner, extensive training, a tight service level agreement, and close oversight and direction by internal marketing staff, brands can have success embracing ‘ghostbranding.’
The rub comes when a consumer asks questions such as: “With whom am I speaking to? Are you a company employee or a hired hand?” How this questions is answered is critical. An honest answer clarifying that no, this is not an actual brand employee may turn off a portion of your followers and perhaps generate some bad press. A dishonest answer could cause much greater harm if the truth ever gets out, which will surely have a negative impact on your followers and your brand image–likely resulting in a press feeding frenzy to shame your brand into an apology.
I don’t believe most consumers care whether they are having conversations with a ghostwriter or a company employee as long as the dialog with the brand is honest, timely, helpful, useful, consistent, straightforward, and as transparent as possible.
I don’t advise brands to utilize ghostwriters for social services such as Twitter, especially if you are a popular, well-established brand with the wherewithal to develop an internal social media outreach strategy involving real, authentic employees. If, on the other hand, you have tried to launch an internal social outreach program to no avail, or if you are a small, emerging brand with less to risk, partnering with a capable third-party to properly represent your brand on social networks is entirely feasible.
Suffice it to say that the risk of not participating in the social web at all far outweighs the risk that something may go wrong in your attempts to engage in meaningful social conversations.
