Be a bubblegum if you must, just don’t get stuck in the hair.

No, this piece is not about Centre Fresh or Boomer, it’s about brands that try to enforce too much brand exposure on its audience. Not knowing your audience is a sin, but not as big as drowning them in heaps of mediocre content. We are doing to Social Media, what we have been doing to its predecessors; ABUSE.

There are quite a few brands who are redefining social media while sipping morning <insert hot beverage of choice>. But I bet you too you would agree, most brands are struggling. Struggling to find inspiration, struggling with the “Content Calendar” and posting heaps of objectionable material in the name of content.

Why so Aggressive?

Let’s take it down a notch and think before creating. Create less and create good. Give your audience a good laugh or a tickle a memory, make the interaction meaningful. Who made the One Post Per Day post anyway?

Showing one video for three months on stories, feed, pre-rolls and mid-rolls is no lesser a crime and almost all of us are guilty of it. The frequency of inorganic exposure should not exceed 1.5 – half an effort, attributed to benefit of doubt. But organically, the more the merrier. Good content is what people would want to snack and share.

It’s okay to have failed a couple of times, let that be your investment to learn what your audience wants. Create content that tells your brand story, every new interaction is awkward, it’s like sitting in a classroom of all new students, everyone is self-conscious and shy. You are the first one to break the ice and that’s good, but the gesture should also be reciprocated. If that doesn’t happen, it’s not your tribe. Move one! Look for the next homie, this time try a different opening line perhaps. The right ones will stick around for more and forge a bond.

So, here’s an experiment that just might change the way your brand does social media. Call your agency and ask them to give you an 8 posts a month strategy with two audience different segments, two exposures for each segment (paid), all essentially videos. Divide the entire promotion budgets for the month one these 8 posts.

DO NOT FORGET TO ADD A CALL TO ACTION. DO NOT FORGET TO TRACK.

Brands are butterflies. Not Bubblegum.

I wanted to share a framework to help map the audience to content but will keep it for another post. Will add the link here once it’s up!

Karan Kaushik

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