Putting it All Out There

As I hinted in my last post, I'm working on a work-related project that also ties into my master's thesis.  It has to do with social media branching off from a corporate site.  Things like comment moderation are a hot topic for me right now!

When I started reading the fourth chapter of Joel Postman's book "SocialCorp" I knew I'd learn a thing or two.  The chapter is called "Can You Control Your Brand, or Just Share It?".

Most of us want to "put it out there" (it being our brand) to gain exposure.  Of course, that comes at a cost, and online that cost can spread like wildfire - or go "viral".

For me and my projects, the two biggest things I'm concerned with are:

1. Whether or not comments should be moderated
2. Establishing corporate identity

I touched on whether comments should be moderated - that is, posted to a blog or forum without being reviewed first - in a previous blog entry.  So here we'll also take a look at  unauthorized use of a brand via social media.

Establishing a Social Media Identity

I moderate a forum and blog site.  Most of the regular users know that I'm a moderator.  There is not, however, any designation next to my user name or profile that points out my moderator status - or the fact that I work for the site's parent company.

Postman uses examples of corporations like Zappos and Dell to show how corporate employees identify themselves.  Many employees do so by appending the company name to the end of the user name (Postman 86).  There are pros and cons to this system:

• Pro - Easy to determine who is an employee (for advertising/customer service from a customer's point of view; for brand management from a corporation's point of view)
• Pro - Can aggregate employee tweets or posts to have a comprehensive feed about company happenings
• Con - May need to monitor employees closely or else train them and ask them to sign agreements for use
• Con - Customers may disregard employee material as propaganda

Unauthorized Use of a Brand in Social Media

Postman uses the example of the popular Facebook application Scrabulous.  It was a game that copied Scrabble, the popular board game, but did not have permission to use the original's content or rules.  Ultimately Scrabble forced Scrabulous to pull its application.  It lost two million potential users in the process (Postman 84).  It could have simply bought the game and changed the name, right?  Did that many people really know or care that Scrabulous was a "knock-off"?



Resources:

Pierson, Garrett. Social Media Marketing Breaks Barriers in Conversations. 2008. Social Media Vision. Web. 31 May 2010. http://www.socialmediavision.com/social-media-marketing-breaks-barriers-in-conversations/ (image)

Postman, Joel. SocialCorp: Social Media Goes Corporate. Berkeley, CA: New Riders, 2009. 77-90. Print.