Friday, October 23, 2009

Would You Trust Your Social Media To A College Intern?

If your business spent $104.6million in capital expansions in 2008 and 28 Million alone was spent on software implementations, and expansion, growth, and cash are all favorable in 2009!


Would you trust your Social Media to a College Intern to implement a new media social engagement strategy for the entire company?

The Job Posting:
Implementing a new media social engagement strategy, this will include content management and development, posting and monitoring user-generated activity, user experience optimization, and potential development and management of third-party relationships.



The Topic du jour in Brands is their adoption of Social Media. The conversations are high noisy, speculative and theoretical. Social media expert, like Barbara Segal have the answers. Their strategies have proof, of Why? Because they have worked in fashion, Media, and community. At the heart of branding conversations are questions related to community. It’s interesting to see how brands adopt social media while also trying to balance their exclusive appeal with the social masses. Does social media make a brands too accessible and diminish the brand value and perception of affluence? 

No, not if implemented correctly. That’s why retailers such as Gucci and Mercedes Benz are creating their own private networks for their most affluent customers or making niche content sites that focus on limited product selection. They are doing this while also marketing to the masses on Twitter and Facebook. As brands move marketing efforts online, they need to focus on creating unique, experiences. Whether the medium is their own communities, or Facebook, brands have to engage their audiences, and they have to do so on a consistent basis.

Hiring an Intern? Lets say you worked your whole life for a red Ferrari, and you now have one. It is a dream car, an asset, and part of a luxury image you keep. The Ferrari serves a very important role in your life. Your 19 year old daughter, comes home from college and wants to go someplace she can impress her friends with Daddy's car. She is a Junior in Harvard, you trust her, you love her, and she is usually responsible. Would you give her the keys to your Ferrari?
 
Social Media is the new Public Relations and technology of today's Brands. A publicly traded company, can NOT afford to take the chance on Interns- non degreed college kids running their Facebook and Twitter.  Here are a few you see running across TweetDeck, "come all my Bit@#es" or twitters saying, "this beer can lid will not pop," at 2am in the morning.  Why is that Corporations are not understanding that Social Media is the new Branding and Public Relations of today. Not a temporary position for a Intern who is on-the-job training.  Tweets of inexperienced and poor net etiquette can quickly damage a corporate reputation and branding. One social media blow, can cost a company its brand.  An Intern on Twitter who is basically a college KID in job training,  running Twitter of a Corporate Brand, is asking for corporate mutiny. If you do not believe me, read the Twitters "everyone of them." Recently, I went to a party where they, "Sacrificed an Intern to the Gods" at a Recording Studio in Santa Monica, CA. It was a rather wild party.

1 comment:

Marijean Jaggers said...

Right on with the "keys to the Ferrari" analogy. Poor interns, but I do think even they understand and do not desire that level of responsibility. It comes with some potential undesired thrashings which no one wants.